A Hong Kong court will begin ruling on Thursday in the city’s largest national security trial, as authorities use sweeping powers given by Beijing to suppress political dissent on the Chinese territory.
The 47 pro-democracy activists and opposition leaders involved in the trial – including former law professor Benny Benny and protest leader and student group founder Joshua Wong – face jail terms and, in some cases, life in prison. Their crime: Holding primaries to improve their chances in citywide polls.
Most of the defendants had been detained for at least three years before and during the 118-day trial. On Thursday, judges chosen by Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing leaders will begin sentencing 16 of those who have pleaded not guilty. Those convicted, along with 31 others who have pleaded guilty, will be sentenced at a later date.
The expected conviction and subsequent sentence will effectively turn the vanguard of the city’s opposition, a symbol of its once vibrant political scene, into a generation of political prisoners.
Some of them are former legislators who joined politics after Hong Kong returned to China in 1997. Mr. Huang was among several students who rose to prominence in 2014 as bespectacled teenage activists who led massive street occupations for voting rights.
“The message from the authorities is clear: Any opposition radicalism, even moderate, will no longer be tolerated,” said Hong Haofeng, an expert on Hong Kong politics at Johns Hopkins University.
Most people have tried to defend the rights of Hong Kong residents in the face of Beijing’s tightening control over Hong Kong. Popular concerns about shrinking freedoms in Hong Kong sparked massive and sometimes violent protests in 2019 and early 2020, posing the biggest challenge to Chinese authorities since 1989.
China responded by imposing a national security law on Hong Kong in 2020, giving authorities a powerful tool to round up critics like the 47 Democrats on trial, including once a leading strategist for the pro-democracy camp Dai Bingguo, a law professor.
Authorities charged them with “conspiracy to subvert state power” for organizing or participating in unofficial primaries ahead of the 2020 vote for legislative seats.
Professor Hong said that in the past, pro-democracy activists had held primaries to select candidates for Hong Kong’s leadership without any problems.
“The fact that they were arrested, convicted, and even detained for such a long period of time before sentencing is indicative of a fundamental change in Hong Kong’s political environment: free elections, even the pretense of free elections, has disappeared,” Professor Hong said.
The charges brought against the activists by Hong Kong authorities are complex and largely based on a scenario that has not yet occurred. Prosecutors say the informal primary is problematic because pro-democracy groups are using it to win a majority in the Legislature. They accused the activists of conspiring to use their majority to veto the government’s budget “indiscriminately”, ultimately forcing the city’s then-leader to resign.
That election never happened. But the activists were arrested in 2021, and after long procedural delays, their case finally went to trial in February last year.
Of the 47 defendants, 31 have pleaded guilty, including Mr Huang, who has been jailed since 2020 in other cases related to his activities. Four of them – Au Nok Hin, a former legislator; Andrew Chiu and Ben Chung, former district officials; and Mike Lam, a grocery store chain owner with political ambitions – testified for prosecutors in exchange for reduced sentences.
All 16 defendants pleaded not guilty Leung Kwok-hung, a veteran activist known as “Long Hair” who promoted welfare policies for the elderly and poor; Lam Cheuk-ting, an anti-corruption investigator turned legislator; Gwyneth Ho, a former journalist.
Since their collective arrests, the city has all but eliminated dissenting voices from its political establishment. Only approved “patriots” can participate in the 2021 Hong Kong Legislative Council elections.
The new law, collectively known as the “Regulations on Safeguarding National Security,” criminalizes broad crimes such as “external interference” and “stealing state secrets,” with penalties including life imprisonment. On Tuesday, the city detained six people under a new security law for allegedly posting “inflammatory material” online. The arrests come just days before the 35th anniversary of China’s bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square. One of the detainees was activist Zhou Hengdong, an organizer of a group holding a vigil to commemorate the victims of Tiananmen.
Observers say the political cases are testing the city’s much-vaunted judicial independence. The trial of Jimmy Lai, a media tycoon and outspoken Beijing critic, is underway. A few weeks ago, a court approved the government’s request to ban a popular protest song, raising concerns about speech.
In the trial of 47 Democrats, the prosecution and defense argued over whether non-violent acts such as primaries could be considered subversive. 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 argued that the primary did not violate the law and was therefore openly planned. Prosecutor Jonathan Man argued the language should be “broadly interpreted” to ensure its validity.
Lengthy legal proceedings and lengthy detentions impose heavy personal costs on defendants. Former legislator Wu Chi-wai lost his parents in prison. Many of the defendants were parents of young children.
“Nearly all of them have seen their lives put on hold – these are some of Hong Kong’s best and brightest, and they’ve all suffered month after month in prison,” said Thomas Kellogg Their careers were cut short., CEO, Georgetown Asian Law Center. “A really sad story.”
Legal scholars said sentencing could take place in several months, with the 47 defendants expected to be divided into different categories. Those deemed “principal offenders” may be sentenced to 10 years to life in prison. “Active participant” can be sentenced to 3 to 10 years in prison. Others found guilty could be jailed or subject to unspecified “restrictions” for up to three years.
Eva Pils, a law professor at King’s College London, said authorities may use the trial results to punish those who cross Beijing’s lines. But Professor Pearce believes the chilling effect of the trial will ultimately be detrimental to the government.
“By creating more repression, fear and self-censorship, it deprives itself of the opportunity to understand what Hong Kong people really think about its decisions,” she said. “I think that’s part of the reason why it’s such an important case in Hong Kong’s history.”
