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Rights activists, relatives and Hong Kong’s former colonial governor on Tuesday slammed the sentencing of 45 democracy activists and former lawmakers for up to 10 years for “subversion,” amid growing calls for further sanctions on Hong Kong and the expansion of lifeboat visa schemes for those fleeing the ongoing political crackdown in the city.
Britain’s last colonial governor of Hong Kong, Lord Patten of Barnes, said the sentences, handed down to pro-democracy activists for organising a primary in July 2020, were “an affront to the people of Hong Kong.”
“I absolutely condemn these sham sentences, which resulted from a non-jury trial and point to the destruction of freedoms of assembly, expression, and the press in Hong Kong,” Patten said in a statement.
“The U.K. government must not allow the results of this case to go unnoticed or uncondemned,” he said.
British Foreign Office minister Catherine West said the sentencing was a clear demonstration of Hong Kong authorities‘ use of the 2020 National Security Law to criminalize political dissent.
“Those sentenced today were exercising their right to freedom of speech, of assembly and of political participation,” West said in a statement.
Canadian Senator Leo Housakos, Member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, described the sentences as a “grave injustice.”
“The National Security Law and the prosecution of these freedom fighters undermine the principles of freedom, human rights, and rule of law,” Housakos said in a statement posted by the London-based rights group Hong Kong Watch.
Call for sanctions
Former politics lecturer Chan Kin-man, who founded the 2014 Occupy Central pro-democracy movement along with key defendant Benny Tai, said none of those jailed, many of whom have been behind bars for more than three years, should have spent a single day in prison.
“Benny worked hard as a constitutional scholar to expand the scope of the pro-democracy movement through peaceful means,” Chan said of Tai, who was handed a 10-year jail term by the Hong Kong High Court on Tuesday.
He said all of those who took part in the 2020 democratic primary – which the prosecution argued was an attempt to subvert the government – had been exercising their rights under the city’s constitution, the Basic Law.
“This makes me both sad and angry,” Chan said in a written reaction to RFA Cantonese.
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U.S.-based activist Anna Kwok, who heads the Hong Kong Democracy Council, condemned the Hong Kong government for “launching an all-out assault” against the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong.
“The international community must respond to the intensifying political repression with proportionate actions,” Kwok said via her X account. “We continue to call on the U.S. government to impose targeted sanctions on Hong Kong and [Chinese] officials responsible for the crackdown on these pro-democracy leaders.”
She also called for the status of Hong Kong’s Economic and Trade Offices to be revoked by Congress, saying there are now around 1,900 political prisoners in the city.
‘Distortion of the facts’
Journalist-turned-activist Gwyneth Ho, who was handed a seven-year jail term on Tuesday, said the prosecution’s claim that the democratic primary was an attempt to undermine the government was a “distortion of the facts.”
“They forced the accused to deny their own lived experience, to see genuine solidarity as just a delusion,” Ho wrote in a post to her Facebook page. “That the bonds, the togetherness, the honest conversations among people so different yet so connected … were just a utopian dream.”
Ho warned that what happened in Hong Kong could happen in any democracy.
“Today, no democracy is immune to the crisis of legitimacy that results from a deficit of public trust,” she said. “Defend and repair your own democracy. Push back against the corruption of power, restore faith in democratic values through action.”
But she said she had no regrets about her involvement in the pro-democracy movement, and the 2019 protests that many saw as a last-ditch attempt to defend the city’s vanishing freedoms.
“Even if what happened today was always inevitable for Hong Kong, then at least back in 2019 we chose to face up to it, rather than … dumping the problem onto the next generation,” Ho wrote.
League of Social Democrats leader Chan Po-ying, said the sentencing of her husband and fellow activist Leung Kwok-hung to six years and nine months’ imprisonment for taking part in the primary was “unjust.”
“My only thought is that this is an unjust sentence; he shouldn’t have to spend a day in prison,” Chan told RFA Cantonese. She said she would be focusing on how best to support Leung during his weekly prison visits.
Maya Wang, senior China researcher for the New York-based Human Rights Watch, said: “Running in an election and trying to win it is now a crime that can lead to a decade in prison in Hong Kong.”
A promise broken
In Taiwan, presidential spokesperson Karen Kuo said democracy isn’t a crime.
“This was a serious violation of the Hong Kong people’s pursuit of freedom and democracy,” Kuo said. “It shows us that the promise that Hong Kong would remain unchanged for 50 years has been broken.”
She said China’s promise to allow the city to run under different principles from the rest of China – the “one country, two systems” formula that Beijing also wants to use in Taiwan – wasn’t viable.
“Taiwan will continue to work with the international community to jointly resist the expansion of authoritarian power,” Kuo said.
Hong Kong Watch called on the British government to expand the British National Overseas visa scheme to include those born before the 1997 handover to Chinese rule, if they had one parent who was eligible for the scheme.
It also called on Washington to renew Deferred Enforced Departure, or DED, status for Hong Kongers in the United States, “to prevent them from being forced to return to Hong Kong where the human rights environment continues to worsen.”
Hong Kong Watch said Ottawa, meanwhile, should “clear the backlog of Hong Kong Pathway applications to prevent the expiration of temporary status for Hong Kongers in Canada.”
Group Patron Ambassador Derek Mitchell said the sentences were “another dark milestone” for Hong Kong.
“The international community must strongly condemn this crime and stand with these brave former legislators, activists, journalists, and trade unionists who fought resolutely for democracy, rights and freedom against the tyranny of the Chinese Communist Party,” Mitchell said.
Translated with additional reporting by Luisetta Mudie.
