Oddbean

Police officers stand guard outside the West Kowloon Magistrates' Courts in Hong Kong on Tuesday. (Chan Long Hei/AP) By Shibani Mahtani November 18, 2024 at 10:18 p.m. ET A Hong Kong court on Tuesday sentenced 45 pro-democracy leaders, the city’s most prominent activists among them, to prison terms ranging up to ten years. None received sentences of less than four years and two months. The harsh penalties for a nonviolent offense underscore how the territory’s legal system has become an extension of the repression Hong Kong has faced since massive pro-democracy protests five years ago, and the authorities’ insistence on continuing to persecute longtime opposition leaders who they believe were at the forefront of the city’s resistance. The sentences mark the end of a protracted legal drama for the activists, who were swept up and arrested over a single day in February 2021. All were Hongkongers who had committed themselves to fighting for greater democratic rights for the city and against Beijing’s legal and political encroachment. They were charged with “conspiracy to commit subversion” under the Beijing-imposed national security law for their participation in an unofficial primary election. The prosecution accused them of seeking to disrupt the functioning of the government if they were to be elected. A total of 47 were charged, and most have remained in pretrial detention since. Of the group, 31 of them pleaded guilty, hoping for reduced sentences, while 14 were found guilty in May after trial. Two were acquitted. Benny Tai, a 60-year old legal scholar who came up with the idea of the primary, received the harshest sentence of 10 years. Those who chose to push back against the charges by going to trial received longer sentences than those who pleaded guilty. Youth activist Joshua Wong, one of the most recognizable of the group, was sentenced to four years and eight months in prison. The eventual time they will now serve in prison will be reduced, depending on the defendant. Judges said they would take into account their public service, and the time they had already spent in jail before Tuesday. The landmark trial, involving the largest number of defendants for a national security case, was seen as a bellwether of how strictly authorities would enforce the new law, which came into effect in 2020. At every step, the case — from the arrests to the initial bail hearings, the years-long pretrial detention and the trial itself — has shown how Hong Kong’s once-lauded judicial system now resembles a more authoritarian system, according to legal experts. The trial was overseen by three judges handpicked by the government to try national security cases, departing from the tradition of trial by jury under Hong Kong’s common law system. “The courts now are rarely departing from the government’s narrative,” said Eric Lai, a research fellow at the Georgetown Center for Asian law. “Judges have been working to further the government’s line, using their definition of pro-democracy protests, on the strategies of the [opposition] democrats, rather than putting weight on safeguarding rights and freedoms.”