Court rules that electing Hong Kong’s own representatives means 'subversion'
In the “Hong Kong 47” trial, the Court convicts defendants accused of organising primaries in 2020 ahead of elections to the local legislature to win a majority that could vote against then Beijing-appointed Chief Executive Carrie Lam’s budget. Scores of people are in jail for this "crime". Meanwhile, Jimmy Lai’s trial is still underway, but the verdict is a foregone conclusion.
Milan (AsiaNews/Agencies) – The first convictions in the "Hong Kong 47" trial were handed down today.
The defendants, members of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, were arrested in January 2021 for violating national security legislation.
Six months earlier, they had organised primary elections to pick candidates to run for seats in the Legislative Council (LegCo), the Special Administrative Region’s legislature.
The heterogeneous group includes former legislators, young students as well as political veterans, lawyers, and journalists.
The three-judge national security court set un under Hong Kong’s National Security Law found 14 defendants guilty of “subversion”, while 31 had already pleaded "guilty" when the trial started more than a year ago since they no longer had any confidence in Hong Kong's judicial system. That is why they are already in prison.
One of them is Joshua Wong, the young leader of the 2014 Umbrella Movement and one of the best-known faces of Hong Kong’s protest movement.
Sentences can range from a minimum of three years to a maximum of life imprisonment, depending on the level of participation.
Two defendants were acquitted: former district councillors Lawrence Lau and Lee Yue-shun.
The court ruling gave a semblance of normality, as if to show that not everyone will be convicted under the infamous National Security Law. However, the prosecution has already announced its intention to appeal the acquittals.
In the 319-page verdict, the Court notes that those plotting to subvert state power do not necessarily have to use force or employ criminal means to be found guilty of breaking the law, nor do they have to know that their tactics are illegal.
To understand what this means and see how Hong Kong's democratic aspirations are being thwarted, it is worth looking back at the history of the primary elections of July 2020.
That vote came after massive protests broke out in 2019 sparked by an extradition law to China that morphed into a broader battle for democracy against the repressive policies of then Beijing-appointed Chief Executive Carrie Lam.
The key event was the extraordinary success of candidates linked to the pro-democracy movement in district council elections on 24 November 2019, which saw an unprecedented 71.23 per cent turnout with pro-democracy candidates taking 388 seats out of a total of 452, leaving Beijing with only crumbs.
This led to the idea of primaries, to undertake an almost impossible battle, namely win half of the seats in the Legislative Council, in order to challenge Carrie Lam's government through the budget vote.
This was a very difficult task because, at that time, only half of the Legislative Council’s 70 seats were directly elected by Hongkongers. To succeed, the pro-democracy movement had to win all of them to offset the members nominated by pro-Beijing constituencies.
The primaries had the added advantage of unifying pro-democracy groups who stood against Carrie Lam with everyone backing those candidates capable of winning in each district.
Postponed due to the pandemic, the primaries were held on 11-12 July 2020 and saw the participation of over 600,000 people.
This was an extraordinary feat, considering that China had by then imposed its own national security law; it was clear also that it would not tolerate any challenge to the government it had imposed on Hong Kong.
The response of the authorities was immediate. LegCo elections were postponed for a year, citing COVID-19 as the excuse. On 6 January 2021, all the main promoters and candidates involved in the primaries were arrested on charges of "subversion”, on which they were convicted today.
When LegCo elections were eventually held on 19 December 2021, it was under new rules, with only one quarter of members directly elected, and all candidates safely belonging to “patriotic” forces.
This new LegCo voted unanimously last March to further tighten national security rules, under Article 23 of Hong Kong's Basic Law.
Bearing this in mind, it is clear that, following instructions from Beijing, the Court has decided that the right to choose who governs Hong Kong is a crime, an act of "subversion”, an attempt “to endanger national security”.
It is also at the heart of other trials, starting with that of Jimmy Lai, the 76-year-old Catholic businessman in prison for more than a thousand days for his pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper, which was forced to close in 2021.
Started on 18 December, his trial has been going on for more than five months now with surreal accusations and an outcome that is a foregone conclusion, like that of the “Hong Kong 47” defendants.
Meanwhile, more people are being arrested for organising in the past annual commemorations to mark the anniversary the Tiananmen Square massacre, which AsiaNews reported a few days ago.
The number of people arrested on “national security” grounds has now reached 1,869, this according to Hong Kong Democracy Council.
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