Mass Trial Finally Ends for Hong Kong Pro-Democracy Activists

Sentences range up to 10 years in proceedings that attract international criticism

Nearly four years after police swooped down on them in their homes, 45 mostly middle-class activists, former lawmakers, journalists, social workers, and academics arrested in Hong Kong on January 6, 2021, and jailed a month later for previously holding a July 2020 unauthorized primary election, have received varying sentences up to 10 years in prison on charges of conspiracy to commit subversion under the draconian National Security law imposed on the city by Beijing. The law established secession, subversion, terrorism, collusion with foreign organizations, open speech, verbal promotion or intention of Hong Kong's secession from China as crimes.

Thirty-one of the defendants had earlier pleaded guilty in the assumption a court fight was futile, hoping for reduced sentences, while 14 were found guilty and two were acquitted in show trials that showcase the harsh years-long national security crackdown that the national government has imposed on what had previously been one of Asia’s freest cities, leaving behind a sullen population with little loyalty to China. In July, authorities announced arrest warrants and HK$1 million bounties for the apprehension of eight more exiled democracy activists and former legislators who had fled.

Hundreds of people showed up in support of the defendants, some the night before to queue for gallery seats, standing in moderate wind and rain under the watchful eye of police ahead of the sentencing, which has attracted widespread international criticism, particularly from the United States and the United Kingdom, which ruled the city as a crown colony for 156 years before handing it back to China in 1997 on a promise that it could maintain its own form of government for 50 years.

That promise began to disappear in the previous decade in the face of raucous, long-lasting mass demonstrations when it became clear that Beijing would not allow the city’s 7.6 million residents to pick their own chief executive as promised under the Basic Law agreed between Margaret Thatcher and Deng Xiaoping.

The detainees were led into the dock at 10:01 am, soon after the hearing began, according to the Hong Kong Free Press, with sentencing following briskly and finished by 10:30. The first batch to arrive were the eight female detainees, including former lawmakers Claudia Mo and Helena Wong, and journalist turned activist Gwyneth Ho. Some wore brightly colored tops, such as Ho, who donned a pink shirt, and Tiffany Yuen, who was wearing a Liverpool Football Club jersey; the team’s anthem is You’ll Never Walk Alone.

Former Hong Kong University law professor Benny Tai Yiu-ting, 60, who government officials called the instigator of the plan for the unofficial primary, received the stiffest sentence, at 10 years for conspiring to subvert state power. Ex-lawmaker Au Nok-hin and former district councilors Andrew Chiu Ka-yin and Ben Chung Kam-lun, all of whom turned prosecution witnesses, were jailed for 73 to 84 months for coordinating with prospective candidates and providing administrative assistance. Joshua Wong Chi-fung, who as a teenager was a driving force in the city’s Occupy movement, received seven years in prison. The others, including former journalist turned lawmaker Claudia Mo Man-ching, 67, the wife of prominent journalist and Asia Sentinel co-founder Philip Bowring, received sentences of up to 81 months in prison.

Mo, who had pleaded guilty, received 50 months and former Democratic Party chairman Wu Chi-wai and ex-Civic Party leader Alvin Yeung Ngok-kiu received 53 and 61 months in jail, respectively. Ex-lawmakers Helena Wong Pik-wan, Lam Cheuk-ting, “Long Hair” Leung Kwok-hung, and Raymond Chan Chi-chuen, were among the 14 defendants convicted after trial and were jailed for 78 to 81 months. Those who pleaded guilty were given automatic one-third reductions of their sentences and Mo received another six-month reduction “in light of her past public service as a former lawmaker and ignorance of the law,” according to media reports.

Democracy activist Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, 76, the publisher of the now-shuttered Apple Daily, formerly one of the most popular newspapers in Hong Kong and the most prominent of those swept up by the authorities, is separately serving a sentence of five years and nine months imprisonment on fraud charges described by international rights organizations as trumped up which were imposed in 2022. Held in solitary confinement, he is also on trial in the Court of First Instance in Hong Kong on charges of collusion with foreign forces and sedition. Lai has been a prominent critic of the Beijing government for decades. He almost certainly will be behind bars for the rest of his life. Sir Keir Starmer, Britain’s prime minister, raised Lai’s case with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in Brazil, likely to no avail.

The case has dragged on interminably since the arrests at the hands of a government clearly intending to make a show of force. Most were detained for almost two years awaiting trial. From that point forward, there has been delay after delay. Only 13 of the 47 were granted bail. The trial actually came to a close last December 4, in a court in West Kowloon – months after the conclusion had been expected by their families. The final verdict had been expected at that point in three to four months. Many have pleaded guilty out of recognition that a verdict exonerating them is unlikely.

Mitigation hearings for those who pleaded guilty, scheduled for July 30, were delayed until late August by Justice Andrew Chan Hing-wai, one of the designated national security judges presiding over the case, citing “unforeseen circumstances.” The last batch of activists entered their final pleas on September 3, with Justice Chan saying the 47 would be sentenced at a later date. That date finally occurred today.