Police stand guard outside the West Kowloon Magistrates' Courts building before the sentencing against the 45 convicted pro-democracy activists charged under the national security law, in Hong Kong, China.Tyrone Siu/Reuters
They were the cream of Hong Kong’s opposition: elected lawmakers, trade unionists and student activists who for years worked to expand the former British colony’s political freedoms and push back on encroachment from China.
Many took a leading role in the huge protests that broke out in 2019, paralyzing the Asian financial centre and pushing police to the breaking point. That year, their movement swept local elections, and appeared poised to seize control of Hong Kong’s semi-democratic legislature, before Beijing stepped in to impose a draconian national security law that has been used in the years since to systematically dismantle all opposition to Chinese rule.
On Tuesday, the largest prosecution brought under that law finally reached its close, with 45 defendants – including prominent figures such as former student activist Joshua Wong and Umbrella Movement leader Benny Tai – jailed for between four and 10 years. (Two of the “Hong Kong 47,” as the defendants have become known, were acquitted in May, though prosecutors are appealing.)
Mr. Tai, painted by prosecutors as the mastermind of a plot to bring the Hong Kong government to its knees, received the toughest sentence, 10 years. Mr. Wong was jailed for four years and six months. Both received reduced sentences in return for pleading guilty. The average sentence was around 55 months.
Hundreds of people – including family members and supporters of the defendants – queued from the early hours of Tuesday morning outside the West Kowloon Law Courts, watched carefully by a large police presence. Whereas in the past such events might have become impromptu political rallies, with banners and shouted slogans, there was no such activity Tuesday, as people waited patiently for the handful of public seats available, umbrellas raised to protect them from the intermittent rain.
Those who did get seats were soon out of them: the hearing was over in a matter of minutes. A panel of three hand-picked national security judges simply rattled off a list of sentences as staff distributed printouts of their reasoning.
In their judgment, Justices Andrew Chan, Alex Lee and Johnny Chan wrote that they had been guided by Hong Kong’s common law sentencing principles, rather than following the example of mainland Chinese courts, where political defendants regularly receive life sentences.
However, the court rejected a mitigation plea advanced by several defendants: that the scheme they were charged with conspiring to enact had no chance of success.
Tuesday’s court case centres on a primary election held by various Hong Kong pro-democracy parties in 2020, with the intention of thinning the field ahead of legislative elections later that year and potentially winning a majority in the semi-democratic chamber for the first time since Hong Kong’s handover to Chinese rule in 1997.
Because some organizers of the primary, including Mr. Tai, had spoken of using that theoretical majority to paralyze official business by rejecting budgets and forcing the city’s chief executive to resign, prosecutors alleged this was a plot to undermine the government in breach of the national security law.
In 2021, dozens of participants in the primary were arrested, even though their plan was never carried out and the elections themselves did not take place, having been delayed because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Since then, Hong Kong’s political system has been dramatically overhauled, reducing what limited democracy has been in place since 1997. All elected seats are withheld for “patriots,” who are vetted by a pro-Beijing body before they can stand.
While some defendants in Tuesday’s trial will be released in a year or two – having served much of their sentences already as hearings dragged on – none will be able to participate in the now extremely curtailed political life of the city they once were considered the future of.
In a statement, Katherine Leung, a Canada-based activist with pressure group Hong Kong Watch, said Tuesday’s sentencing was a reminder of the “continued dismantling of freedoms and democracy in Hong Kong under Beijing’s National Security Law, as the world witnesses how those who dared to hope for a better future for Hong Kong now face years behind bars.”
“This isn’t just about Hong Kong – it’s about the lengths Beijing will go to silence dissent, from imprisoning those who engaged in a peaceful democratic process to targeting and intimidating activists living overseas,” she said. “Canada should work with allies to hold Beijing accountable for these injustices and to protect the freedoms and rights of all Hong Kongers, wherever they are.”
The Hong Kong government has been trying hard in recent months to regain control of the narrative, pivoting toward a focus on reviving the economy and boosting tourism, but this has been a struggle as high-profile prosecutions continue to dominate headlines around the world.
While Tuesday’s hearing brings one case to a close, another continues: on Wednesday, media mogul Jimmy Lai is due to start testifying in his own defence in a trial that has attracted intense international criticism and raised concerns over Hong Kong’s dwindling press freedoms.