The punishment for trying to participate in the fading remnants of Hong Kong democracy is to be revealed in the next few days.
The Reuters headline refers to 47: “After long legal battle, Hong Kong’s 47 democrats brace for sentencing” (November 17, 2024). But two of those 47 have been acquitted, at least of the charge of plotting subversion.
A Hong Kong court will this week sentence 45 democratic campaigners in a major national security trial, with potentially heavy jail terms poised to further damage the financial hub’s once lively pro-democracy movement, critics say.
In May, 14 of the 47 democrats were found guilty of the charge of conspiracy to commit subversion, and two were acquitted. Earlier, 31 had pleaded guilty, hoping for reduced sentences.
The U.S. has described the trial and its guilty verdicts as “politically motivated”, while demanding the defendants be released….
On Tuesday, three national security judges hand-picked by the government for this trial will conclude the legal saga that began with the democrats’ arrests in January 2021. Jail terms are expected to range from several years for participants to possible life imprisonment for principal offenders.
Even though the judicial game has long been plainly rigged by the Chinese Communist Party—the judges deciding the fates of the innocent defendants were “hand-picked by the government for this trial”—Hong Kong is still beleaguered by foreign guest-judges or former guest-judges who like to suggest that objectivity and justice can still flourish in Hong Kong’s post-2020, post-crackdown system.
When Lord Lawrence Collins, part of the system since 2011, stepped down from the Hong Kong court in June 2024, he said that although he had resigned from the Court of Final Appeal “because of the political situation in Hong Kong, I continue to have the fullest confidence in the Court and the total independence of its members.” Maybe the outcome of the present case will help Lord Collins to realize that his fullest confidence is misplaced.
