The former deputies Leung Kwok-Hung, Lam Cheuk-Ting, Helena Wong and Raymond Chan are among the 13 applicants who will dispute their sorrows. The hearings are supposed to spread over ten days before the Court of Appeal.
Among the convicts, activist Owen Chow, 28, received the heaviest sentence: seven years and nine months in prison. His condemnation illustrates the severity of the sanctions pronounced against the figures of the Hong Kong opposition.
International criticisms of the trial
“The only way to restore the image of the city as a place where rights are respected and where people are authorized to express their opinions freely, without fear of being arrested, is to cancel these convictions,” said Sarah Brooks, director of Amnesty International for China. The United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom considered that this trial highlighted the erosion of freedoms and the political opposition in the former British colony, returned to China in 1997.
Faced with the applicants, the prosecutors of the Court of Appeal will dispute the acquittal of lawyer Lawrence Lau at first instance. Mr. Lau is one of the only two members of the “47 of Hong Kong” to have been declared not guilty.
Objectives of the unofficial primary
By their unofficial primary, the opponents hoped to improve their chances of obtaining the legislative majority and then forcing the government to access their requests. Among these demands were the establishment of universal suffrage, under penalty of a veto of the government budget.
Three judges chosen by the authorities to treat national security affairs mentioned a plan that would have caused a “constitutional crisis”. This qualification justified the heavy convictions pronounced against the organizers of this primary.
Releases and political dissolution
Eight opponents, including the ex-journalist who became a lawyer Claudia Mo and the LGBT+ rights defender Jimmy Sham, have served their sentence and been released in recent weeks. Their releases intervene in a context of continuous repression of the Hong Kong opposition.
In parallel, one of the last opposition parties still active in Hong Kong, the League of Social Democrats (LSD), has officially dissolved in late June. The training justified this decision by what it called “immense political pressure” exerted by the authorities.
(AFP) Note: This article was published with the help of artificial intelligence.
