At the end of a landmark national security trial that concluded on Tuesday, Hong Kong’s High Court sentenced 45 pro-democracy figures to up to ten years in prison. Forty-seven democratic politicians, activists, and organizers were arrested and charged in January 2021 with conspiracy to commit subversion under the National Security Law. The charges related to their participation in organizing an unofficial primary election in 2020 ahead of a legislative election. In February 2023, the trial began. In May of this year, the court convicted 14 defendants who contested the accusations and acquitted two more, while 31 others pleaded guilty. Most of the defendants have already been in detention without bail for nearly four years. Due to the passage of the Article 23 National Security Ordinance, most of them will no longer be granted early release for good behavior. The case was overseen by three national security judges handpicked by the government, departing from the tradition of trial by jury under Hong Kong’s common law system. 

Over 300 members of the public braved the rain to support the defendants outside the court, but only five seats were reserved for supporters in the courtroom. On the steps of the courthouse, the mother of Hendrick Lui, who received a sentence of four years and three months, brandished a sign that read, “The righteous will live & the wicked will perish,” before she was hustled into a police van. Inside the courtroom, activist Joshua Wong shouted “I love Hong Kong!” as he was escorted away from the dock after receiving a sentence of four years and eight months in prison. Tiffany May from The New York Times reported on the solemn scene inside the courtroom and the trial’s significance for Hong Kong:

The sentences were the final step in a crackdown that cut the heart out of the city’s democracy movement, turning its leaders into a generation of political prisoners. Among them were veteran politicians, former journalists and younger activists who had called for self-determination for Hong Kong.

In a courtroom that had to be created just to accommodate them, the 45 defendants sat shoulder to shoulder on Tuesday on long benches, behind a glass partition and flanked by police officers. A judge read their sentences aloud, referring to them not by their names but by their numbers on a list. The hearing was over in half an hour.

It was the most forceful demonstration of the power of a national security law Beijing imposed on Hong Kong in response to months of large protests against Chinese rule in 2019. [Source]

Hong Kong Secretary for Security Chris Tang said that the government may consider “whether to file an appeal to seek longer jail terms” for certain individuals. The Hong Kong Free Press compiled a list of all of the defendants and the length of their sentences:

After receiving a seven-year sentence, Gwyneth Ho, who pleaded not guilty and did not submit a mitigation plea, published a statement on Facebook describing her prosecution as emblematic of Hong Kong’s broader struggle for democracy. She also explained how her courage to fight was motivated by the resolve of countless political prisoners from around the world whose governments have tried in vain to silence them:

17. The narrative put forward by the prosecution is not just a distortion of facts or a threat to the larger public. It goes much deeper—they are forcing the accused into self-denial of their lived experiences. That genuine solidarity was just a delusion. That the bonds, the togetherness, the honest conversations among people so different yet so connected, cannot be real after all. That the difficult co-building of a collective united in difference with a shared vision for a better future was just a utopian dream. 

18. But no. They are not just idealistic dreams but realities that I have lived through. I choose to fight to prove that such connections are not only possible but have actually been lived out and continue to live on. The only delusion here is the belief that brutal oppression can ever deny their existence.

19. It is not a responsibility nor moral obligation. It is the strong urge within me to do justice to what I witnessed and experienced, for they constitute part of me and define who I was. And I am now going to define who I am.

[…] 27. It’s that feeling again. Like looking through a cloudy gas mask into the determined eyes of a complete stranger, or walking alongside another in thick, irritating smog toward the light. I have come so far in search of it. The human connection that would only come through shared acts of courage, between individuals who dare to follow their true selves. For to dare is to lose one’s ground momentarily, yes, but not to dare, is to lose oneself. [Source]

Widespread condemnation followed the sentencing. The League of Social Democrats chairperson Chan Po-ying told reporters outside the courtroom, “My only thought is that it’s a miscarriage of justice and that they [the democrats] should not have been detained for even one day.” Maya Wang, associate China director at Human Rights Watch, stated, “Running in an election and trying to win it is now a crime that can lead to a decade in prison in Hong Kong. Today’s harsh sentences against dozens of prominent democracy activists reflect just how fast Hong Kong’s civil liberties and judicial independence have nosedived in the past four years since the Chinese government imposed the draconian National Security Law on the city.”

Sarah Brooks from Amnesty International stated, “These harsh sentences underline the dire state of Hong Kong’s justice system. None of the 45 people sentenced have committed an internationally recognized crime; they have been jailed only for exercising their human rights.” Eric Lai, a research fellow at the Georgetown Center for Asian Law, stated, “The courts now are rarely departing from the government’s narrative. 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.” Over 50 members of parliaments from around the world condemned the sentencing. Kanis Leung from Reuters compiled criticism of the sentencing from numerous foreign governments:

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said her government was “gravely concerned” by the sentences for Australian citizen Gordon Ng and the other activists. Wong said Australia has expressed strong objections to the Chinese and Hong Kong authorities over the continuing broad application of national security legislation.

[…The European Union] said in a statement that it is deeply concerned about the politically motivated prosecution of the defendants for peaceful political activity. It said such activities should be legitimate in any political system that respects basic democratic principles.

[…] The sentencing “not only breaks the promises of ‘50 years unchanged’ and ‘high degree of autonomy,’ but further proves that ‘one country, two systems’ is unfeasible,” [Taiwan presidential office spokesperson Karen Kuo] said in a statement.

[…] The U.S. Consulate in Hong Kong said the U.S. strongly condemned the sentences, saying the defendants were aggressively prosecuted and jailed for participating in normal political activity protected under the city’s mini-constitution. [Source]

On Wednesday, the national security trial of Hong Kong publisher and politician Jimmy Lai is scheduled to resume after being adjourned for four months. Lai has so far spent four years in solitary confinement and faces life imprisonment. These cases this week embody the government’s weaponization of the justice system to silence opposition. Emphasizing this point on Tuesday, Hong Kong Watch published a report titled, “In the Name of National Security: How Hong Kong’s National Security Laws Dismantle the Rule of Law in Comparative Perspective,” comparing the city’s national security laws to similar legislation in China, Russia, and Malaysia.