Hong Kong’s biggest national security trial opened on Monday with 47 of the city’s most prominent pro-democracy activists facing life in prison in a landmark case that could end the region’s political opposition.
The defendants, who include some of Hong Kong’s top politicians and campaigners, were arrested in January 2021 in the largest police raid under national security laws. Most of the defendants have spent more than two years in pre-trial detention after being denied bail.
Critics have described the arrests as a politically motivated crusade to destroy Hong Kong’s pro-democracy parties and suppress opposition voices, part of a wider crackdown on the region’s freedoms and civil society following anti-government protests in 2019.
The trial also comes as the Hong Kong government launches initiatives to revive its ailing economy and lure international business after three years of pandemic restrictions and protests that have tarnished its international reputation.
The 47 defendants include activist Joshua Wong, AFP reporter-turned-MP Claudia Mo, social activist and founder of the “Long Hair” Social Democratic League Leung Kwok-hung and former BBC Chinese reporter Gwyneth Ho.
He is accused of conspiring to undermine state power under security laws by organizing or participating in unofficial primary elections between the opposition camp in July 2020. More than 600,000 people voted in the polls, which prosecutors said was an attempt. to “paralyze” the Hong Kong government by winning control of the legislature, which is now entirely controlled by pro-Beijing parties.
Beijing immediately implemented a national security law in Hong Kong in 2020 following the protests, criminalizing broadly defined crimes including terrorism, secession, subversion and collusion with foreign powers. The move has spread widely through civil society, the legal sector and the education system, eliminating dissent.
Sixteen of the defendants, including Leung and Ho, pleaded not guilty during Monday’s hearing. “I did not commit a crime,” Leung told the court. Thirty-one others pleaded guilty either on Monday or in earlier proceedings. At least 90 days have been set aside for a non-jury trial.
Three members of Leung’s LSD, one of the remaining active opposition factions, called for the defendants to be released outside the courtroom on Monday before being dismissed by police.
Thomas Kellogg, executive director of Georgetown University’s Asian Law Center, described the trial as having “all the hallmarks of a politically motivated prosecution of the city’s main political opposition”.
“This case is important for what it says about human rights in Hong Kong,” he said. “The fact that several dozen top opposition politicians could be jailed . . . speaks starkly of the damage that has been done to Hong Kong’s once-vibrant civil life.
The case has fueled tensions between China and the west. The US, UK and EU have previously denied the allegations, and diplomats from their consulates in Hong Kong have attended the pre-trial hearing. He was there on Monday too.
Hong Kong is expected to try another national security case this year against media mogul and Beijing critic Jimmy Lai in September. Lai, 75, faces charges of foreign collusion for his role as the founder of the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily.
He has been in prison since December 2020 and was sentenced in December 2022 to five years and nine months in prison on charges of fraud related to a media company, in addition to 20 months for illegal demonstrations.
Analysts have warned that the security law trial will put pressure on Hong Kong’s common law system, one of the last pillars that differentiates the region from mainland China, where the ruling communist party wields influence over the judiciary.
China’s top legislature last month said Hong Kong leader John Lee could prevent defendants in national security cases from hiring foreign lawyers, an unprecedented interference in representation rights. Lee had called for Beijing’s intervention to prevent Lai from hiring a British lawyer after the government lost an appeal to the city’s top court.
More than 200 people, including family members and friends of the activists along with well-wishers, lined up to attend Monday’s hearing.
“Follow my heart to come and support them. . . I have to remain faithful,” Jerome Lau, 72, said outside the courtroom.
Additional reporting by Primrose Riordan in Hong Kong