If we weren’t before, which we were, we are now in a position to conclude that the contempt for justice and eagerness to obey the Chinese Communist Party guiding Hong Kong’s judges in the Jimmy Lai case is no anomaly. A court in the former British colony has upheld the fraudulent convictions “of about a dozen activists in national security case” (Associated Press, February 23, 2026).
A Hong Kong court on Monday dismissed all appeals arising from the city’s biggest case brought under a Beijing-imposed national security law.
The pro-democracy advocates were among 47 activists charged in 2021 with conspiracy to commit subversion for their involvement in an unofficial primary election. The mass prosecution involving some of the best-known activists crushed much of the Chinese territory’s once-thriving pro-democracy movement that reached a height with massive anti-government protests in 2019.
Forty-five of the defendants were sentenced to between four years and 10 years in 2024, with their punishments drawing criticism from foreign governments and rights groups.
Eleven activists who appealed their convictions lost their bids. They included former lawmakers Leung Kwok-hung, Lam Cheuk-ting, Raymond Chan and Helena Wong.
All appeals over sentences were also dismissed by the Court of Appeal.
Lawrence Lau, a pro-democracy former district councilor, was one of two activists acquitted in the case. Judges upheld his acquittal following an appeal from the prosecution.
One of the crimes of the convicted lawmakers were their plans to press for the goals of the protesters as members of the Hong Kong legislature.
It’s not a “national security case,” of course. As used by the CCP in relation to its critics and proponents of democracy, this phrase is a misleading term of propaganda. None of the defendants was planning to invade Beijing. If they had been and could have done so successfully, toppling the regime and instituting a reign of freedom and democracy, great. But that is not what the defendants were doing. They were just protesting tyranny and defending freedom and democracy. That’s all.
So far “nearly 20” of the 45 convicted activists, sentenced to relatively short terms, have been released. Benny Tai, a legal scholar, is one of those serving the longest sentence meted out of ten years.
