Media frenzy: Police holding back journalists outside the Magistrates’ Court in Hong Kong. — AFP
A court jailed all 45 defendants convicted of subversion in the city’s largest national security trial, with “mastermind” Benny Tai receiving the longest term of 10 years.
International condemnation was swift, with Western countries and rights groups slamming the sentencing as evidence of the erosion of political freedoms in the city since Beijing imposed a security law in 2020.
Tai’s sentence was the longest yet handed out under the security law, which was brought in to quash dissent after massive, sometimes violent pro-democracy protests in 2019.
His 44 co-defendants were sentenced to shorter terms beginning from four years and two months.
All were charged with subversion after holding an informal poll in 2020 as part of a strategy to win a pro-democracy electoral majority.
The group includes some of the most prominent figures of Hong Kong’s once-diverse political opposition.
After Tai, the second-longest sentence of seven years and nine months was handed to young activist Owen Chow.
In a Facebook post before the sentencing, Chow had said he was “absolutely not optimistic”.
“But I see hope because even (if) I am far from the day of release, we have now seen the end point,” he wrote.
Yesterday, the 45 were crammed into the defendant’s dock, from where they occasionally waved to the public. Many have already spent more than 1,300 days in jail.
Pro-democracy politicians Au Nok-hin, Andrew Chiu and Ben Chung were singled out as organisers, but received lesser sentences after testifying against Tai.
“Long Hair” Leung Kwok-hung, the 68-year-old co-founder of the city’s last standing opposition party, received a term of six years and nine months.
His wife and party leader Chan Po-ying said that the term was “within our expectations”.
“It is what it is – no matter (whether) I laugh or I cry, so I choose to laugh a bit,” she said.
After the sentencing, the mother of defendant Hendrick Lui silently took out a placard reading “The righteous shall live, the wicked shall perish”.
She was taken away in a police van within seconds, according to video footage.
Leticia Wong, a former district councillor, said that she found the terms were “encouraging people to plead guilty and testify against their peers”.
Western countries and international rights groups have condemned the trial as evidence of Hong Kong’s increased authoritarianism.
China yesterday said such Western criticism “seriously desecrates and tramples on the spirit of the rule of law”, and warned against interference. — AFP
