Hong Kong courts will begin handing down verdicts on Thursday in the city’s biggest national security case, as authorities use broad powers granted by Beijing to crack down on political dissent in the Chinese territory.
this 47 democracy activists The opposition leaders on trial — including former law professor Benny Tai and protest leader and student group founder Joshua Wong — face prison sentences, some possibly life, for one crime: holding a primary to boost their chances in a citywide election.
Most of the defendants have been detained for at least three years before and during the 118-day trial. On Thursday, judges picked by Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing leaders will begin sentencing 16 defendants who have pleaded not guilty. Those convicted will be sentenced later along with 31 others who have pleaded guilty.
The expected conviction and subsequent sentencing will effectively change The vanguard of urban oppositiona hallmark of its once vibrant political scene, turned into a generation of political prisoners.
Some are former lawmakers who entered politics after Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule in 1997. Others are activists and lawmakers who advocate self-determination for Hong Kong but have adopted a more confrontational strategy. Several, like Joshua Wong, who is known as the bespectacled teenage activist who led a massive street occupation in 2014 for voting rights, have joined the ranks of the city’s top lawmakers.
“The message from the authorities is clear: any opposition activities, even moderate ones, will no longer be tolerated,” said Kong Yifeng, an expert on Hong Kong politics at Johns Hopkins University.
Most have sought to defend the rights of Hong Kong residents in the face of Beijing’s tight grip on the city. Public concern about declining freedoms in the city sparked massive and sometimes violent protests in 2019 and early 2020, the biggest challenge to Chinese authorities since 1989.
In response, China imposed a national security law in Hong Kong in 2020, giving authorities powerful tools to round up critics such as the 47 pro-democracy figures now on trial, including Benny Tai, a law professor who once served as a leading pro-democracy strategist, and Margaret Ng, a former legislator and veteran activist.
Authorities charged them with “conspiracy to subvert state power” for attempting to organize or participate in the 2020 informal primary elections ahead of the Legislative Council elections.
Professor Hung said that in the past, democrats had held primaries to select candidates for Hong Kong’s chief executive, and there was nothing wrong with the election results.
“The fact that they were arrested, convicted and even detained for such a long time before the verdict was announced reflects a fundamental change in the political environment in Hong Kong: free elections, or even the illusion of free elections, have disappeared,” Professor Kong said.
The charges brought by Hong Kong authorities against the activists are complex and based largely on a situation that has not yet occurred. Prosecutors say the informal primary was problematic because the pro-democracy camp was using it to win a majority in the Legislative Council. They accuse the activists of conspiring to use that majority to “indiscriminately” veto the government budget and ultimately force the resignation of Hong Kong’s then-chief executive.
That election never took place. But the activists were arrested in 2021, and after lengthy procedural delays, their case finally went to trial last February.
Of the 47 defendants, 31 pleaded guilty, including Joshua Wong, who has been serving jail time for other cases related to his activities since 2020. Four of them — former legislator Au Nok-hin, former district officials Vincent Zhao and Chung Wai-keung, and grocery store chain owner Lam Ho-man, who has political ambitions — testified for prosecutors in exchange for reduced sentences.
The 16 defendants who pleaded not guilty include Veteran activist Leung Kwok-hung, known as “Long Hair,” who has pushed for policies that provide benefits to the elderly and poor; anti-corruption investigator-turned-legislator Lam Cheuk-ting; and former journalist Junius Ho.
Since their collective arrest, opposition voices have been all but eliminated from Hong Kong’s political institutions. Approval of “Patriot” was allowed to run in the 2021 municipal election. In March, Hong Kong passes its own national security law At Beijing’s request, and at breakneck speed.
The new law, collectively known as the National Security Ordinance, criminalizes broadly defined offenses such as “external interference” and “stealing state secrets,” with penalties including life imprisonment. On Tuesday, Hong Kong detained six people under the new national security law for allegedly posting “seditious material” online. The arrests came days before the 35th anniversary of China’s bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square. One of the detainees is activist Zhou Hengtong, the organizer of a group that organized a vigil to honor the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Observers say the political cases are testing Hong Kong’s much-vaunted judicial independence. Jimmy Lai on triala media tycoon and outspoken critic of Beijing, is underway. A few weeks ago, Court approves government’s request to ban popular protest songraising concerns about speech.
The prosecution and defense have argued over whether nonviolent actions such as the primary elections can be considered subversion. The national security law defines subversion as a person who organizes or takes action “by force, threat of force or other illegal means.”
The defense argued that they did not participate in the violence and that the primary was not illegal and therefore was openly planned. Prosecutor Jonathan Man believed that the sentence should be given “Broad interpretation” to ensure its effectiveness.
The lengthy legal proceedings and prolonged detentions exacted a heavy personal toll on the defendants. Former legislator Wu Chi-wai lost both his parents in prison. Many of the defendants are parents of young children.
“Almost all of them found their lives on hold — they were some of Hong Kong’s best and brightest, and they all endured months in prison and had their careers cut short,” Thomas Kellogg said., “It’s a really sad story,” said the executive director of Georgetown University’s Asian Legal Studies Center.
Legal scholars say the 47 defendants will be divided into different tiers when sentencing is expected in a few months. Those deemed “principals” could receive 10 years to life in prison. “Active participants” could receive three to 10 years in prison. Others found guilty could be jailed or subject to unspecified “restrictions” of up to three years.
Eva Pierce, a law professor at King’s College London, said authorities could use the trial’s findings to punish those who cross Beijing’s line. But Professor Pierce believes the trial’s chilling effect will ultimately work against the government.
“By creating more repression, fear and self-censorship, it is depriving itself of the opportunity to know what Hong Kong people really think about its decision,” she said. “I think that’s part of what makes it such an important case in Hong Kong’s history.”
