Benny Tai, 59, will spend the next ten years in prison in Hong Kong. Among the 45 pro-democracy activists sentenced Tuesday, November 19 to sentences ranging from six to ten years in prison for “subversion,” this famous Christian jurist was the most severely punished. In the eyes of the Chinese authorities in Hong Kong, he has been considered for years as a “disruptor of the social order” and as an “organizer” of the 2020 primary elections which the authorities deemed “subversive”. “Absurd accusations” “This are the most absurd accusations that the local government subservient to Beijing could make against Benny Tai,” reacted Patrick Poon, exiled in Tokyo for three years and who has known the jurist very well since the early 2000s. “ Benny is a man of exceptional integrity, describes this former Amnesty activist, who has continued to contribute to strengthening the rule of law under threat in Hong Kong since its handover to the People’s Republic of China in 1997. »With another law professor and a pastor, Benny Tai launched the great “Occupy Central” movement in 2014. Faced with government threats to limit direct universal suffrage for the legislative elections, hundreds of thousands of Hong Kongers organized a 79-day peaceful demonstration in the city’s central business district, denouncing these political manipulations. At the time, Benny Tai could be seen organizing meetings with mobilized young people in the street. “I will never give up and I will continue to work for democracy in Hong Kong,” he said, well aware of the dangers which already weighed on a rule of law increasingly weakened by the influence of Beijing. A respected jurist Benny Tai studied law at the University of Hong Kong and in London at a time when China and the United Kingdom were entering the final stages of negotiations for the city’s handover. His thesis focused on the political framework promised by Beijing, “one country, two systems”, which allowed Hong Kong to maintain a capitalist economy, as well as individual freedoms within the framework of the rule of law. Benny Tai assisted another famous lawyer, Martin Lee, Catholic and creator of the Hong Kong Democratic Party, in the drafting of the Basic Law, the mini-Constitution of the territory supposed to guarantee the democratic freedoms promised by China. “Benny Tai always been an inspiration and not a conspirator” insists Patrick Poon who remembers his seminars organized in the early 2000s at the University of Hong Kong with lawyers from China. In his eyes, Benny Tai relied on legal texts and the Constitution to defend in the eyes of mainland Chinese that the model of the rule of law guarantees political stability and individual freedoms. “Nothing subversive in all his actions” he insists. A man of great integrity Like the businessman and Catholic pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai, 76, whose trial resumed on Wednesday November 20 . He is being heard as part of his trial for “collusion”, which began at the end of 2023, after articles in his newspaper supporting the pro-democracy demonstrations of 2019 and criticizing the leaders of Beijing. At the opening of the hearing, he had these very strong words: “The fundamental values of Apple Daily (Editor’s note, his daily newspaper, closed in 2021) are at the heart of the deep values of the people of Hong Kong. It is engraved in their hearts because they lived under the institutions of the British colony. » Which guaranteed, despite its status as a colony, the rule of law. Unlike the People’s Republic of China.
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