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Dozens of Hong Kong\u2019s most well-known democracy activists and leaders are now expecting to be sentenced to prison, in some cases for perhaps as long as life, after a court issued a verdict Thursday in the city\u2019s largest national security trial.<\/p>\n
Their offense: holding a primary election to improve their chances in citywide polls.<\/p>\n
The authorities accused 47 pro-democracy figures<\/a>, including Benny Tai, a former law professor, and Joshua Wong, a protest leader and founder of a student group, of conspiracy to commit subversion. Thirty-one of those defendants have since pleaded guilty.<\/p>\n On Thursday, judges picked by Hong Kong\u2019s Beijing-backed leader convicted 14 of the remaining activists and acquitted two others.<\/p>\n The convictions show how the authorities have used the sweeping powers of a national security law imposed by Beijing to quash political dissent in the Chinese territory. The punishments that are expected to follow in the coming weeks or months would effectively turn the vanguard of the city\u2019s opposition<\/a>, a hallmark of its once-vibrant political scene, into a generation of political prisoners.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Some are former lawmakers who joined politics after Hong Kong was returned to Chinese rule by the British in 1997. Others are activists and legislators who have advocated self-determination for Hong Kong with more confrontational tactics. Several, like Mr. Wong, who rose to fame as a teenage activist, were among the students leading large street occupations in 2014 for the right to vote.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Most of the defendants have spent at least the last three years in detention ahead of and during the 118-day trial.<\/p>\n \u201cThe message from the authorities is clear: Any opposition activism, even the moderate kind, will no longer be tolerated,\u201d said Ho-fung Hung, an expert on Hong Kong politics at Johns Hopkins University.<\/p>\n The pro-democracy activists have said they were merely defending the rights of Hong Kong residents in the face of Beijing\u2019s tightening control over the city. Public alarm over shrinking freedoms in Hong Kong had set off enormous, at times violent, protests in 2019 and early 2020, mounting the greatest challenge to Chinese authority since 1989.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In response, China imposed a national security law on Hong Kong in 2020, handing the authorities a powerful tool to round up critics like the 47 people on trial, including Mr. Tai, the law professor who had been a leading strategist for the pro-democracy camp, and Claudia Mo, a former lawmaker and veteran campaigner.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The authorities charged them with \u201cconspiracy to commit subversion\u201d over their efforts to organize or take part in an unofficial primary election in 2020 ahead of a vote for seats on the Legislative Council.<\/p>\n In the past, pro-democracy activists had held primary elections to select candidates to run for the election of the city\u2019s leader, with no issue, Professor Hung said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe fact that they were arrested and convicted and even put behind bars for so long before the verdict manifests a fundamental change in Hong Kong\u2019s political environment: Free election, even the pretension of a free election, is gone,\u201d Professor Hung said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The case the Hong Kong authorities have made against the activists is complicated, and based largely on a scenario that hasn\u2019t happened. Prosecutors say the unofficial primary election was problematic because the pro-democracy bloc was using it to win a majority in the legislature. They accuse the activists of plotting to then use that majority to \u201cindiscriminately\u201d veto the government budget, ultimately forcing the city\u2019s leader at the time to resign. This plan, if carried out as the defendants had intended, would have amounted to subversion under the national security law, the judges ruled on Thursday. <\/p>\n That election never happened. But the activists were arrested in 2021 and their case finally went to trial in February of last year, after lengthy procedural delays.<\/p>\n Of the 47 defendants, 31 entered guilty pleas, including Mr. Wong, who since 2020 has served prison sentences in other cases related to his activism. Four of them \u2014 Au Nok-hin, a former lawmaker; Andrew Chiu and Ben Chung, former district officials; and Mike Lam, a grocery chain owner with political ambitions \u2014 testified for the prosecution in exchange for a reduced sentence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The 14 defendants who were convicted on Thursday included <\/strong>Leung Kwok-hung, a veteran activist known as \u201cLong Hair\u201d who pushed for welfare policies for the old and the poor; Lam Cheuk-ting, an anti-corruption investigator turned legislator; and Gwyneth Ho, a former journalist. The two defendants who were acquitted were Lawrence Lau, a barrister, and Lee Yue-shun, a social worker.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Since they were arrested en masse, the city has all but eliminated opposition voices in its political institutions. Only approved \u201cpatriots<\/a>\u201d were allowed to stand for election to the city\u2019s legislature in 2021. And in March, Hong Kong passed its own national security laws<\/a> with extraordinary speed, at the behest of Beijing.<\/p>\n The new laws, collectively known as the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, criminalized broadly defined crimes like \u201cexternal interference\u201d and the \u201ctheft of state secrets,\u201d with penalties that include life imprisonment. On Tuesday, the city detained six people under the new security law for allegedly publishing \u201cseditious materials\u201d online. The arrests come days ahead of the 35th anniversary of China\u2019s bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters at Tiananmen Square. One of those detained was the activist Chow Hang Tung, the organizer of a group that has held vigils to remember the victims of Tiananmen.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Observers say that the political cases are testing the city\u2019s much-vaunted judicial independence. A trial against Jimmy Lai<\/a>, a media tycoon and an outspoken critic of Beijing, is underway. Weeks ago, a court granted a government request to ban a popular protest song<\/a>, raising concerns about speech.<\/p>\n In the trial of the 47 democrats, the prosecution and defense argued over whether nonviolent acts, such as the primary election, could be considered an act of subversion. The national security law defines a person guilty of subversion as someone who organizes or takes action \u201cby force or threat of force or other unlawful means.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The defense had argued that they had not engaged in violence, and had believed that the primary election did not violate laws, and therefore was planned openly. The prosecutor, Jonathan Man, argued that the language should be given a \u201cwide interpretation<\/a>\u201d to ensure its effectiveness.<\/p>\n The drawn-out legal process and lengthy detention have come at a heavy personal cost for the defendants. <\/strong>One former legislator, Wu Chi-wai, lost both parents while behind bars. Many of the defendants are parents of young children.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cAlmost all of them are seeing their own lives being put on hold \u2014 these are some of the best and brightest of Hong Kong, all of whom have seen their careers cut short as they endure month after month behind bars,\u201d said Thomas Kellogg, <\/strong>the executive director of the Georgetown Center for Asian Law. \u201cA truly sad story.\u201d<\/p>\n During sentencing, which will likely take place months later, the 47 defendants are expected to be sorted into tiers, legal scholars have said. Those considered \u201cprincipal offenders\u201d could be sentenced to between 10 years and life imprisonment. \u201cActive participants,\u201d between three and 10 years in prison. Others who are found guilty could be imprisoned or subject to unspecified \u201crestrictions\u201d for up to three years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Eva Pils, a law professor at King\u2019s College London, said that the authorities would most likely use the outcome of the trial to make examples of those who crossed Beijing\u2019s lines. But the chilling effect of the trial would ultimately be detrimental to the government, Professor Pils argued.<\/p>\n \u201cBy creating more repression, fear and self-censorship, it is depriving itself of the opportunity to learn what Hong Kongers really think about its decisions,\u201d she said. \u201cI think that is part of what will make it such an important case in Hong Kong\u2019s history.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n