Fourteen Hong Kong pro-democracy activists were found guilty and two acquitted Thursday in a historic subversion trial that critics say could deal another blow to the city’s rule of law and its reputation as a global financial center.
The sentences in Hong Kong’s biggest trial of the pro-democracy opposition come more than three years after police arrested 47 democrats in early morning raids on homes across the city. They were charged with conspiracy to commit subversion against a national security law imposed by China.
The sentence will be announced later, with prison terms ranging from three years to life. Thirty-one defendants pleaded guilty and four of them became prosecution witnesses.
The United States and other countries have criticized the trial as politically motivated, calling for the immediate release of those accused. The hearing was attended by diplomats from several countries, including the United Kingdom and the European Union.
The defendants are accused of a “cruel conspiracy” to paralyze the government in the former British colony and force the city’s leader to resign through a preselection vote in the July 2020 municipal elections. Democrats say it was an attempt to not making official the selection of strongest candidates to obtain a historic majority in the Hong Kong legislature.
Summing up their verdict, Justices Andrew Chan, Alex Lee and Johnny Chan wrote that if the defendants were successful, it would generate “a constitutional crisis for Hong Kong” and lead to “serious interference or disruptions in the performance of duties and of functions, in accordance with the law of the Government of Hong Kong.”
Source: Terra
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