(TibetanReview.net, Nov21’24) –For campaigning for democracy, Hong Kong has jailed 45 activists as anti-China, with Beijing condemning those who criticized the court’s atrocious rulings.
A court in Hong Kong special administrative region of China has on Nov 19 sentenced 45 defendants – including former high-profile lawmakers, activists, unionists and journalists – to prison terms ranging from 50 months to 10 years in the largest single prosecution to date under a draconian national security law imposed by Beijing four years ago.
The sentencing to such stiff terms of such a large number of Hong Kong’s best known pro-democracy figures has drawn criticisms from the United States and other nations as well as rights groups.
Those sentenced included prominent legal scholar Benny Tai, who was jailed for 10 years for being the “mastermind”, and prominent student leader Joshua Wong, sentenced to four years and eight months, for “subversion”.
The imprisonments were the largest use of the authoritarian National Security Law brought in to clamp down on democracy in Hong Kong in 2019, noted the independent.co.uk Nov 19.
The 45 were convicted in May for conspiracy to subvert State power, with two people acquitted of the charge, said China’s official chinadaily.com.cn Nov 20.
The group, which originally had 47 defendants, had been charged with “conspiracy to commit subversion” for their roles in holding an unofficial primary election in 2020 to improve their chances in citywide polls.
Beijing-backed city leaders, police and prosecutors argued the democratic primary amounted to a “massive and well-organized scheme to subvert the Hong Kong government.”
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The US consulate in Hong Kong said Washington “strongly condemns” the sentencing, while Australia said it was “gravely concerned” about the fate of a dual citizen sentenced to more than seven years in prison, reported the AFP Nov 19.
The self-ruled island of Taiwan — which Beijing claims as its own — and several human rights groups also issued condemnations, the report added.
Besides, British Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, has been criticised for meeting China’s president Xi Jinping just hours before the democracy activists were sentenced.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, former chair of the Democratic Party in Hong Kong, Emily Lau, suggested Sir Keir’s meeting with Xi at the G20 a mere hours before the sentencing meant the agreements the UK government signed with China over the (democratic) governance of the territory before its handover in 1997 were “evaporating”.
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China has condemned the Western criticisms of the sentencing of the democracy campaigners in Hong Kong.
A spokesperson for Beijing’s foreign ministry said the criticism “seriously desecrates and tramples on the spirit of the rule of law,” noted the AFP report.
“China’s central government… steadfastly opposes some Western countries taking individual judicial cases as a pretext to interfere in China’s internal affairs, and to smear and undermine the rule of law in Hong Kong,” the Spokesman, Lin Jian, has said at a regular press briefing.