At the end of a flagship trial against 45 political figures and pro-democracy activists, the courts on Tuesday handed down prison sentences ranging from 4 to 10 years. Their crime: having organized informal primary elections to increase their chances in the 2020 legislative elections. The judges considered this act as an attempt at subversion aimed at paralyzing power. The verdict marks a turning point in the territory.
Hundreds of people braved the rain outside the Kowloon courthouse on Tuesday to watch the epilogue of the largest trial ever held under Beijing’s national security law. Some members of the public had waited hours, even days, to hear the sentences handed down in less than six minutes. A verdict as short as it is heavy.
The trial ended more than three years after the arrest of 47 members of the democratic opposition in a wave of simultaneous searches across the special administrative region under the national security law.
Jurist Benny Tai, at the origin of the political project of the pro-democracy movement, received a prison sentence of 10 years, the longest handed down to date under the special law promulgated in 2020 in the wake of massive protests and sometimes violent in favor of democracy which had shaken the former British colony for many months.
Consequences of an unofficial primary election
All the activists were found guilty of organizing an unofficial primary intended to select opposition candidates for the legislative elections. The objective at the time was to win a majority in the local assembly to block the adoption of budgets and force the resignation of the then pro-Beijing leader of Hong Kong, Carrie Lam.
The authorities had warned against the maneuver planned in the territory’s mini-constitution and discouraged citizens from participating in the vote. Some 610,000 people defied power by participating in the vote in July 2020, or nearly a seventh of Hong Kong voters.
The executive had pulled the rug from under the feet of the opposition by postponing the elections, allowing Beijing to carry out an in-depth political reform excluding pro-democracy candidates in favor of hand-picked loyalist figures. Since then, Hong Kong’s “patriotic elected officials” have been strictly controlled.
Reactions to the verdict
Beyond the severity of the sentences inflicted for the organization of an informal peaceful democratic vote, this trial sends above all a message to a population mainly hostile to the Chinese Communist Party: put away your democratic aspirations and do not let yourself go to the criticism, even moderate, of the authorities under penalty of being heavily sanctioned.
If the trial has caught the attention of Hong Kongers, few comment on it openly, with the exception of the hundreds of courageous people mobilized Tuesday morning, with their feet in the water, to accompany the condemned during the reading of the verdict.
Determined to suppress the democratic impulses and demands of Hong Kongers, the Chinese Communist Party is banking on repression and time: a new patriotic education program was launched in schools last September. At the heart of the teachings: love of the homeland and Chinese national identity.
Radio subject: Michael Peuker
Web adaptation: agencies/Miroslav Mares
