45 Hong Kong pro-democracy activists sentenced to prison

Photo: Peter Parks Agence France-Presse Police arrest a woman outside the West Kowloon Magistrate's Court in Hong Kong on November 19, 2024.

Agence France-Presse in Hong Kong

Published yesterday at 10:27 p.m. Updated at 12:25 a.m.

• Asia

A Hong Kong court on Tuesday sentenced 45 pro-democracy activists convicted of “subversion” to prison terms of up to 10 years, following Hong Kong's largest trial on charges of endangering national security.

The United States, Australia and human rights NGOs immediately responded by condemning the sentences as evidence of the erosion of political freedoms in Hong Kong since Beijing’s reassertion of power.

Lawyer Benny Tai received a 10-year prison sentence, the longest to date under the 2020 law, which was enacted a year after massive and sometimes violent pro-democracy protests in the Chinese special administrative region (SAR).

All the activists were convicted of organizing an unofficial primary to select opposition candidates for legislative elections in the hope of winning a majority in the local assembly, vetoing budgets and potentially forcing the resignation of Hong Kong’s then-pro-Beijing leader. in place, Carrie Lam.

Despite warnings from authorities, 610,000 people voted in the July 2020 primary, nearly a seventh of Hong Kong’s voting-age residents.

The authorities eventually scrapped the local assembly election, and Beijing introduced a new political system that tightly controls Hong Kong’s elected officials.

“Constitutional Crisis”

Forty-seven people were initially arrested and later charged in 2021 in the case.

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Of those, 31 pleaded guilty, 16 were tried in a 118-day trial last year, which ended in 14 were convicted and two acquitted in May.

The judges found that the group had risked provoking a “constitutional crisis,” and 45 were found guilty of “conspiracy to subvert state power.”

Politicians Au Nok-hin, Andrew Chiu, Ben Chung and Australian-Hong Kong activist Gordon Ng, who were designated as the “masterminds” of the election, were sentenced to up to 7 years and 3 months in prison.

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Australia has expressed “grave concern” about the sentences, particularly that of Gordon Ng, who has dual Hong Kong and Australian citizenship.

The second longest sentence was given to youth activist Owen Chow, at seven years and nine months, with the court finding that he had “played a more proactive role in the system than the other defendants.”

Leung Kwok-hung, 68, a co-founder of the city’s last remaining opposition party, the League of Social Democrats (LSD), was sentenced to six years and nine months.

His wife and LSD leader Chan Po-ying described the sentence as “in line with [her] expectations,” when interviewed by AFP.

Leticia Wong, a former city councilor for a now-disbanded pro-democracy party who attended the hearing, said the conditions of the trial “encouraged people to plead guilty and testify against their peers.” “For those who refused to be subjugated, the sentence is obviously harsher,” she said.

Growing authoritarianism

Authorities in China and Hong Kong say the security law helped restore order following the 2019 protests and have warned against “interference” from other countries.

Western countries and Western NGOs have criticized the trial as evidence of the growing authoritarianism of Hong Kong authorities.

The United States “strongly condemned” the prison sentences handed down to activists who had engaged in “normal political activity protected by the Basic Law of Hong Kong,” according to a spokesperson for the consulate.

“Today’s harsh sentences reflect how rapidly Hong Kong’s civil liberties and judicial independence have collapsed over the past four years,” Maya Wang, associate China director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

Anna Kwok, executive director of the Hong Kong Democracy Council in Washington, condemned “an attack on the very essence of Hong Kong’s yearning for freedom, democracy, and the right to political expression.”