Hong Kong’s High Court on Tuesday sentenced 45 pro-democracy activists to prison terms of up to 10 years after a landmark national security trial that crippled the city’s once-vibrant democracy movement and drew criticism from the United States and other countries.
In 2021, 47 pro-democracy activists were arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit subversion under a national security law imposed by Beijing and faced sentences of up to life in prison.
Benny Tai, the organiser of the 2020 unofficial primaries, received the maximum sentence of 10 years, becoming the longest sentence under this law introduced by Beijing in 2020.
The other convicts received sentences ranging from 4 years 2 months to 7 years 9 months. The defendants faced life imprisonment.
The court found that the activists’ plan to block the budget and the resignation of Hong Kong’s chief executive could have led to a constitutional crisis comparable to a coup d’état. The unofficial primaries, which attracted more than 600,000 voters, were seen by authorities as subversive, contravening a national security law introduced after the 2019 protests. Government-appointed judges rejected defence arguments about the legality of the activists’ actions.
Critics, including Human Rights Watch, say the verdict reflects the decline of civil liberties and judicial independence since the introduction of the national security law in 2020. The law, they argue, suppresses dissent, contradicting civil liberties guarantees given to Hong Kong when sovereignty was transferred to China in 1997.
The US and some EU countries have condemned the trial as politically motivated, demanding the release of the prisoners.
The Hong Kong government, on the other hand, denies that the trial is politically motivated, claiming that it respects the law and protects individual rights.
