A Hong Kong court has sentenced 45 leading pro-democracy activists to up to 10 years in prison in a landmark security case as authorities stamp out dissent in the Chinese territory.
Legal scholar Benny Tai received 10 years in prison, the heaviest sentence. The court, in its ruling on Tuesday, said that Tai was a “principal offender” in organising an unofficial primary election in 2020.
The other defendants received sentences of between four and eight years. Joshua Wong, a former leading student protest organiser, was sentenced to more than four years in prison, while Gordon Ng, an Australian national, received more than seven years.
“One day in prison is too many,” said Chan Po-ying, wife of former lawmaker Leung Kwok-hung, 68, who was sentenced to 81 months.
The trial of the Hong Kong 47, as the case was known, was the largest under the national security law that Beijing imposed following anti-government protests in 2019. Hong Kong followed up with its own security legislation in March.
Hong Kong has been struggling to restore its reputation as an international financial centre in the wake of the political crackdown and coronavirus pandemic restrictions, which led to outflows of foreign businesses and residents.
“This case is unprecedented in Hong Kong’s history of democratic movement,” said Eric Lai, a research fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Asian Law. “Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement will suffer for many years due to the vacuum of leaders and outstanding activists.”
The defendants — who were arrested in sweeping dawn raids in January 2021 — represented some of the city’s most prominent pro-democracy politicians, activists, union officials, journalists, academics and student leaders.
Thirty-one defendants, including Tai, 60, and Wong, 28, had pleaded guilty in hopes of receiving reduced sentences, while 14 others were convicted in May. Two were previously acquitted, though prosecutors have filed an appeal against one of the acquittals. The charges carried a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
Most of the defendants have been in detention for more than three years after being denied bail, and will only have to serve the remainder of their sentences.
The defendants were accused of conspiracy to commit subversion over an opposition primary election in 2020. Prosecutors had alleged that they had plotted to “paralyse” the government by winning control of the city’s legislature, which would allow them to block budgets and eventually force the city’s leader to resign.
The governments of the US, UK, EU, Canada and Australia have condemned the charges, which have renewed concerns for Hong Kong’s rule of law.
Five foreign judges have departed from Hong Kong’s top court this year, including former UK Supreme Court judge Lord Jonathan Sumption, who warned in June that the city was “slowly becoming a totalitarian state”.
The three judges who presided over Tuesday’s hearing were selected from a government-vetted list for security cases.
Australian foreign minister Penny Wong said in a statement that Canberra was “gravely concerned” by the sentences, and called on China to “cease suppression of freedoms of expression, assembly, media and civil society” and repeal the national security law.
The sentences came a day before Jimmy Lai, the billionaire former media mogul and critic of China’s Communist party, is set to testify in court for the first time in a separate national security case. Lai, a British citizen, faces up to life in prison on charges of conspiring to publish seditious material and “collusion with foreign forces”.
More than 200 people queued in the rain outside the courthouse early on Tuesday for seats in the public gallery. “I hope they can see that many of us are still here to support them,” said Wei Siu-lik, a friend of one of the defendants, who arrived at about 4am.
An elderly pro-democracy supporter known as “Grandpa Wong” said he wanted to see the activists one more time. “I don’t know if I will still be [alive] when they get out of prison,” he said.
