The Hong Kong justice system has not shown the slightest clemency. At the end of the largest political trial since the handover of Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China on July 1, 1997, judges at the West Kowloon court sentenced 45 pro-democracy activists to prison terms ranging from six to ten years. Detained for almost four years, they were convicted of “conspiracy aimed at subverting state power”. Accused of “subversion” All activists, lawyers, politicians, researchers, jurists, trade unionists, social workers, professors, arrested in 2021, were found guilty of having organized in 2020 an unofficial primary intended to select opposition candidates for the legislative elections. They hoped to win a majority in the local assembly, veto budgets and potentially force the resignation of Carrie Lam, then pro-Beijing leader of Hong Kong. Despite warnings from the authorities, 610,000 people voted in primary school, or nearly a seventh of the population of age to do so. The authorities finally gave up on the assembly election and Beijing established a new political system which strictly controls Hong Kong’s elected officials. No more political dissent possible. “It’s so sad,” says Patrick Poon, former Amnesty activist. International in Hong Kong, exiled in Tokyo, because these heavy prison sentences are comparable to those inflicted in China against human rights activists or lawyers. » In his eyes, today there is no longer any possible dissidence in Hong Kong, totally run by the Chinese Communist Party. “With the trial of Jimmy Lai (Wednesday November 20, Editor’s note), these are two trials which embody the collapse of human rights in Hong Kong” since 2020, Amnesty International’s China director, Sarah Brooks, told Agence France-Presse. “Not only were these prosecutions draconian, they were also cruel. »The erosion of political freedoms Western countries as well as human rights groups see these two trials as proof of growing authoritarianism in Hong Kong since Beijing imposed a national security law there in 2020. The lawyer and academic Benny Tai, 60, was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment. It is the longest sentence handed down under the 2020 law, enacted a year after massive and sometimes violent pro-democracy protests in China’s special administrative region. Benny Tai was considered by the authorities as the “mastermind” of these primaries. The erosion of political freedoms in Hong Kong will once again be at the heart of the hearing in the trial against businessman and Catholic pro-democracy activist Jimmy on Wednesday, November 20. Lai, 76 years old. He must be heard as part of his trial for “collusion”, which began at the end of 2023, after articles in his newspaper supporting pro-democracy demonstrations and criticizing the leaders of Beijing. The billionaire, a British citizen, has never spoken during his last five trials and almost four years of imprisonment. Jimmy Lai faces life in prison.
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