They come after primaries held in 2020 by pro-democracy fronts
The West Kowloon Court in Hong Kong has sentenced all five pro-democracy activists who promoted the primaries for the parliamentary elections in the former British colony in 2020 with sentences of up to 10 years in prison for subversion.
They are the jurist Benny Tai (10 years in prison) and the politicians Au Nok-hin, Andrew Chiu, Ben Chung and Gordon Ng. The other 41 people involved in the proceedings were also convicted, in what was Hong Kong’s largest national security trial under the law imposed by Beijing on the former colony in June 2020 after mass pro-democracy protests in 2019.
The largest national security case to date in the former British colony involved 45 pro-democracy activists, academics and former politicians, part of the so-called ‘Hong Kong 47’ group (two defendants were acquitted), who had been charged the accusations in 2021 “of conspiracy to subvert” for their role in an “unofficial primary vote” in 2020, in view of the parliamentary elections which were then postponed. Most of the defendants have been in detention since then: the jurist Benny Tai, labeled as the “mastermind and organizer” of the activists, received the heaviest sentence of 10 years in prison. Among the five promoters of the initiative there is also an Australian with dual citizenship Gordon Ng, hit with a sentence of seven years and three months in prison which provoked strong protests in Canberra. High Court judges did not read the full sentencing disposition, an 82-page document which would be uploaded online for the “public to weigh in”. In 10 minutes, however, the sentences of each defendant were spelled out, cited not by name but by list number in the proceedings. The primaries were designed to increase the chances of having pro-democracy candidates elected to the local parliament (LegCo) in the 2020 vote: for the specialized panel on national security made up of three judges, all chosen by the Hong Kong executive, the aim was to weaken the government and lead to a constitutional crisis. Of the 47 defendants, 31 pleaded guilty and of the 16 who denied the charges, two were acquitted in May and 14 were found guilty. In addition to Australia, the United States also contested the judicial response. “The US strongly condemns the sentences announced against 45 democracy supporters and former deputies. The defendants were aggressively prosecuted and imprisoned for peacefully participating in normal political activities protected by the Basic Law (the local Constitution, ed.) of Hong Kong,” a spokesperson for the U.S. Consulate General said.
