The river trial of 47 of Hong Kong’s most prominent pro-democracy figures begins Monday, in the biggest court case yet under the national security law that has shattered all dissent in the metropolis.
The hearings are expected to last four months, after which the 47 defendants face sentences of up to life in prison.
Hong Kong authorities accuse them of trying to overthrow the city’s pro-Beijing government. The defendants claim that they were prosecuted for joining a normal political opposition.
Observers point out how this trial illustrates how little room there is to criticize Beijing’s power in Hong Kong since the crackdown on pro-democracy protests in 2019.
Those on trial represent a wide cross-section of Hong Kong’s opposition — from prominent jurist Benny Tai to former lawmakers such as Claudia Mo, Au Nok-hin and Leung Kwok-hung, to young pro-democracy activists like Joshua Wong and Lester Shum.
All were jointly charged in March 2021 with “conspiracy to commit an act of subversion” for having organized, a year earlier, an unofficial primary election intended to select opposition candidates for the legislative elections.
Their stated goal then was to secure a majority in the city’s partially elected assembly, in order to veto budgets and potentially force the resignation of Hong Kong’s Beijing-appointed leader.
The authorities finally gave up on the election of the Hong Kong assembly and Beijing established a new political system which strictly controls the candidates for power.
In 2020, Beijing imposed the new national security law on Hong Kong, using it to accuse the group of “subversion of state power”.
China says the law was necessary to curb political unrest, but Hong Kong rights groups and opposition figures say the ensuing crackdown has all but ended the autonomy and political freedoms of the city.
Transformed political landscape
Dennis Kwok, a former opposition MP who now lives in the United States, called the prosecution of the 47 defendants a “complete farce”.
“Subversion is a crime that once required someone to threaten to use violence […] to overthrow the regime,” Kwok told AFP.
“This does not include people who simply run for office and promise to use their public office to force the government to meet the demands of the people they represent,” he added.
But prosecutors and government supporters view the opposition primary election differently.
“If your intention is to bring down the government, then it must be illegal,” Ronny Tong, a veteran lawyer who sits in the Hong Kong government, told AFP.
Although Hong Kong was never a democracy, its system of governance allowed, for a time, much greater freedom of expression than in mainland China.
The National Security Act, however, transformed the city’s political landscape as well as its common law legal traditions, with each arrest and prosecution creating new case law.
Protesting and challenging the authorities now carries many risks.
The law allowed Beijing’s security apparatus to operate openly in the city and set up a new judicial system, now close to that of mainland China.
Most of the defendants — 34 out of 47 — have been imprisoned for almost two years.
The few people released on bail are subject to restrictions, including on freedom of expression.
Judges who sit on national security cases are hand-picked by the city’s ruler and there have been no jury trials yet.
“Strong signal”
In December, Beijing said Hong Kong’s leader could also bar foreign lawyers from taking part in national security trials.
Judicial and political analysts will follow this trial closely.
“This particular charge and this case will send a pretty strong signal that any challenge to the authority of the current regime will be taken seriously,” Ming-sung Kuo, a lawyer at Britain’s University of Applied Sciences, told AFP. Warwick.
Eric Lai, a fellow at the Asian Law Center at Georgetown University, said Hong Kongers would pay close attention “to how the prosecution defines an ordinary occurrence in civil society as a criminal act”.
Sixteen of the 47 defendants have pleaded not guilty, a position which, if convicted, could result in longer sentences.
In addition, three of them will testify against their peers as prosecution witnesses, the court was told.