Jimmy Lai, Hong Kong’s distinguished pro-democracy prisoner and media mogul, was sentenced to twenty years in jail beneath Beijing’s sweeping nationwide safety legislation on Monday in a high-profile case that has dragged on for 5 years.
Lai, the founder of the now-shuttered Apple Every day newspaper, was first arrested in August 2020 and located responsible late final 12 months on two counts of international collusion and one depend of seditious publication.
Now age 78, he faces a jail time period that’s successfully a life sentence, rights teams say – a “profoundly unjust” verdict they name emblematic of China’s crackdown on pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong.
Greater than six years have handed since tens of millions of Hong Kongers – led by college students and younger activists – first took to the streets to protest towards Beijing’s increasing powers within the territory in 2019.
After a months-long standoff with protesters occupying roads ended with hundreds of arrests, China imposed its sweeping nationwide safety legislation in Hong Kong in 2020, successfully quelling essentially the most important problem to the Communist Celebration’s authority in many years.
Known as the Legislation of the Individuals’s Republic of China on Safeguarding Nationwide Safety within the Hong Kong Particular Administrative Area, the laws virtually criminalised protest, or any act of subversion, in Hong Kong. Since its introduction, it has seen a near-One hundred pc conviction charge.
So, what occurred to the pro-democracy activists in these years, and the place are they now?
Who’s Jimmy Lai, and what’s his sentence for?
Lai’s case has drawn the eye of world leaders and international rights teams.
Earlier than he was arrested in 2020 and held in solitary confinement in Hong Kong’s high-security Stanley Jail, Lai was certainly one of Hong Kong’s most well-known rags-to-riches tales.
After fleeing China for then-British Hong Kong as a toddler within the Nineteen Fifties, he constructed up a enterprise empire within the metropolis, together with the tabloid Apple Every day, over a number of many years.
He was among the many few Beijing critics amongst Hong Kong elites, and has overtly supported town’s democracy motion, together with throughout the 2019 protests.
Final 12 months, Lai was discovered responsible of two counts of international collusion and one depend of seditious publication.
The Hong Kong courtroom famous that Lai’s sentence was significantly punitive as a result of he had been the “mastermind” and driving pressure behind international collusion conspiracies.
Lai’s household, lawyer, supporters, and former colleagues have warned that he may die in jail, as he suffers from well being situations, together with coronary heart palpitations and hypertension.
His co-defendants within the case – six editors and journalists from Apple Every day – additionally acquired jail phrases starting from six years and three months to 10 years. They’re writer Cheung Kim-hung, affiliate writer Chan Pui-man, editor-in-chief Ryan Legislation, government editor-in-chief Lam Man-chung, government editor-in-chief answerable for English information Fung Wai-kong, and editorial author Yeung Ching-kee.
Are different main trials of pro-democracy figures going down?
Sure. One month after Lai was convicted, three extra pro-democracy figures who organised an annual memorial in Hong Kong to mark the Tiananmen Sq. bloodbath of 1989 had been charged beneath the brand new nationwide safety legislation.
Their trial commenced final month.
Chow Hold-tung, Lee Cheuk-yan and Albert Ho have been charged with inciting subversion, with a most penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment if convicted.
The activists are former leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance in Help of Patriotic Democratic Actions of China. The alliance was based in Might 1989 to help protesters holding democracy and anticorruption rallies in Beijing.
The next month, China’s authorities despatched in troopers to crush the motion round Tiananmen Sq..
Yearly since then, Hong Kong has hosted yearly candlelight vigils to mark Beijing’s lethal crackdown. These had been banned by the federal government in 2020, however some activists continued to try to carry them.
“This case will not be about nationwide safety – it’s about rewriting historical past and punishing those that refuse to overlook the victims of the Tiananmen crackdown,” mentioned Sarah Brooks, Amnesty Worldwide’s deputy regional director for Asia, when the trial commenced final month.
Have there been different trials prior to now?
The trial of the HK47, or Hong Kong 47 – a protest group of politicians, activists, campaigners, and group members throughout the 2019 demonstrations – turned the biggest nationwide safety case within the territory, with 47 distinguished pro-democracy activists and politicians going through expenses.
Lots of them had been arrested in early 2021 beneath the brand new nationwide safety legislation for organising an unofficial main election in 2020 to decide on pro-democracy candidates for legislative elections.
Prosecutors accused the defendants of plotting to “overthrow” the Hong Kong Particular Administrative Area authorities, whose government is appointed by Beijing, to pressure town’s chief to resign. In November final 12 months, a Hong Kong Court docket sentenced 45 of them to jail phrases of as much as 10 years in a mass sentencing beneath the controversial legislation. Thirty-one of them had pleaded responsible within the landmark case.
Within the verdict, judges famous that if the defendants had succeeded of their plot, it could have created “a constitutional disaster for Hong Kong”.
Two people – barrister Lawrence Lau and social employee Lee Yue-shun – had been acquitted throughout the prolonged trial.
Among the many defendants had been activists Joshua Wong, Benny Tai, Owen Chow and Gwyneth Ho, alongside veteran democratic lawmakers akin to Leung Kwok-hung, Lam Cheuk-ting and Helena Wong.
The place are Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protesters now?
Right here is the most recent we learn about Hong Kong’s distinguished pro-democracy activists:
Benny Tai
Benny Tai, a former College of Hong Kong professor, is serving a 10-year sentence in Hong Kong, the heaviest punishment issued throughout the trial.
Handing down the sentence to Tai, judges, who had been hand-picked by the Hong Kong authorities, described him because the “mastermind” behind the “conspiracy”, of their judgement.
Tai, now 61, may have been sentenced to fifteen years in jail, however the judges mentioned that the sentence was decrease as a result of he entered a responsible plea.
Joshua Wong
Wong was one of the internationally recognised faces of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy motion and emerged throughout the protests of the Umbrella Motion in 2014, when activists demanded electoral reforms in Hong Kong. The protests didn’t set off electoral reforms, however turned the catalyst for a number of years of escalating resistance that culminated within the 2019 protests and Beijing’s eventual imposition of the nationwide safety legislation.
Wong co-founded Demosisto, a pro-democracy political social gathering launched in 2016 from the student-led actions of the 2010s. The social gathering was disbanded on June 30, 2020, the identical day the nationwide safety legislation was enacted.
Wong has been arrested and jailed a number of occasions over time for protest-related offences, together with illegal meeting and as soon as for collaborating in a Tiananmen vigil after the 2020 ban. Final 12 months, Wong was convicted within the HK47 trial, and was sentenced to 4 years and eight months in jail.
Nonetheless, in June final 12 months, he was once more charged with conspiring to collude with international forces – additionally beneath the nationwide safety legislation.
He has been accused of conspiring to ask international nations, establishments, organisations or people outdoors China to impose sanctions or blockades. He awaits trial for this cost.
Nathan Legislation
Nathan Legislation, who co-founded Demosisto with Wong, fled Hong Kong in 2020 after China imposed the sweeping safety legislation.
In 2021, Legislation, who additionally beforehand served as a neighborhood legislator in Hong Kong, was granted asylum in the UK. Hong Kong authorities have provided rewards of 1 million Hong Kong {dollars} ($128,000) for info on him.
Legislation was alleged to be a co-conspirator with Wong within the newest cost of “international collusion” introduced towards them final 12 months. He stays wished by Hong Kong authorities, with arrest warrants issued beneath the safety legislation.
Agnes Chow
Chow, the third co-founder of Demosisto alongside Wong and Legislation, resides in exile in Canada.
Now 29, she was arrested in 2020 and acquired a 10-month jail sentence for collaborating in an unauthorised meeting throughout the 2019 demonstrations. She was launched on bail in 2021, after spending greater than six months in jail, on the situation that she verify in with the police commonly.
She went to Toronto to pursue a grasp’s diploma after securing permission from authorities – after which jumped bail in 2023, asserting in a social media publish that she didn’t intend to return to Hong Kong.
Owen Chow
Owen Chow is a pro-democracy activist who was jailed for involvement within the 2019-2020 anti-Beijing protests.
He was arrested at age 23 in January 2021 and tried and sentenced to seven years and 9 months’ imprisonment. He’s at present serving jail time in Hong Kong.
Chow was additionally a candidate within the District Council elections in 2019 and ran within the pro-democracy primaries in 2020. When arrested, he had practically completed incomes a level in nursing.
Leung Kwok-hung
A founding member of the League of Social Democrats in 2006, Leung previously served as a member of the Legislative Council from 2004 to 2016.
He was disqualified from his Legislative Council place in 2016 after he held a yellow umbrella, exclaiming that the “Umbrella Motion would by no means finish”, in reference to the protests of 2014.
He has had a number of stints in jail, and was convicted within the HK47 case, receiving a jail sentence of six years and 9 months.
Leung was recognized for sporting lengthy hair and his political theatrics. He’s now 69.
He married his longtime accomplice, Vanessa Chan, additionally a distinguished activist, after China imposed the nationwide safety legislation, noting that marriage would give them higher authorized rights, akin to jail visitations.
Gordon Ng Ching-hang
Ng, a Hong Kong-Australian citizen, was jailed for seven years and three months as a part of the mass sentencing within the HK-47 case.
Ng went to Sydney’s Waverley Faculty to review arithmetic and commerce. He has been in jail since his arrest in February 2021.
Gwyneth Ho
Gwyneth Ho, who labored at Radio Tv Hong Kong (RTHK) and numerous media shops, together with Stand Information and BBC, as a journalist, can also be serving a jail sentence in Hong Kong.
Ho reported from the entrance traces of the protests and later ran within the unofficial democratic main elections that led to her arrest in January 2021.
She was convicted of conspiracy to commit subversion beneath the nationwide safety legislation and handed a seven-year sentence. She was additionally sentenced to 6 months’ imprisonment for collaborating in a Tiananmen Sq. vigil in June 2020.
Jimmy Sham
Sham, a distinguished pro-democracy and LGBTQ+ activist, was launched from jail in Might final 12 months, after being imprisoned for over 4 years within the HK47 case.
Whereas imprisoned, Sham fought for recognition of his same-sex marriage on the metropolis’s prime courtroom, which later in September 2023 led to a ruling that the federal government ought to present a framework for recognising same-sex partnerships.
Sham was freed with three others, Kinda Li Ka-tat, Roy Tam Hoi-pong, and Henry Wong Pak-yu, who’re all former district councillors. They reside in Hong Kong now.
They had been the second batch of prisoners to have accomplished their sentences via pre-trial imprisonment by the point the HK47 trial concluded.
In April final 12 months, 4 former Legislative Council members – Fan Kwok-wai, Claudia Mo Man-ching, Kwok Ka-ki and Jeremy Tam Man-ho – had been additionally freed after finishing their sentences.
