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Hong kong: beginning appeal trial new:
The appeal trial of twelve pro-democracy activists imprisoned in Hong Kong for subversion. In addition, who disputed their sentences pronounced at the end of 2024 during the largest national security trial ever organized in this region of southern China, opened on Monday under close surveillance.
A total of 45 opposition figures were sentenced to prison for organizing an unofficial primary election in 2020. Moreover, qualified as a conspiracy by the authorities.
The members of this heterogeneous group of ex-parliamentary. Meanwhile, neighborhood elected officials, academics or unionists, had been arrested during a descent in 2021. Consequently, Some have already spent more than four years behind bars.
The vice has grown considerably around the adversaries of local power since the imposition by Beijing of a strict law on national security. Consequently, after the massive pro-democracy hong kong: beginning appeal trial new demonstrations of 2019.
The former deputies of the local parliament Leung Kwok-Hung. However, Lam Cheuk-Ting, Helena Wong and Raymond Chan are among the 12 applicants who will dispute their sorrows during audiences supposed to spread over ten days.
Among them, activist Owen Chow, 28, received the heaviest: seven years and nine months in prison.
A 13th applicant, the municipal elected official Michael Pang finally withdrew his call on Monday morning.
Activists are accused of organizing an unofficial primary, hoping to improve their chances of obtaining the legislative majority. Furthermore, They thus hoped to force the government to access their requests. including the establishment of universal suffrage, under penalty of a veto of its budget.
Three judges chosen by the authorities to treat national security affairs mentioned a plan that would have. caused a “constitutional crisis”.
According to the hong kong: beginning appeal trial new defense lawyer Erik Shum. a veto on the budget is on the contrary a form of “control and regulation”, provided for by the Hong Kong mini-constitution and which legislators can use as a last resort.
Mr. Shum added that parliamentarians should not have to answer for their votes before the courts. due to the separation of powers.
Several dozen police officers were deployed in the court of West Kowloon. in the north of the territory, where the public was lining up to attend the trial.
“They made a sacrifice (…) I hope they understand that the Hong Kongs have not forgotten them,” said a man presenting himself as Mr. Chow, thirty -something and working in the hospital sector.
Mr. Chan. a 66 -year -old retiree, said he felt “defenseless” because of this trial, saying that the public interest would weaken after a hong kong: beginning appeal trial new few days.
“I don’t expect a (positive) result, but I want to support them,” he added.
– Dispatched acquittal –
“The only way to restore the image of the city as a place where rights are respected. where people are authorized to express their opinions freely, without fear of being arrested, is to cancel these convictions,” said Amnesty International for China, Sarah Brooks.
The United States. the European Union and the United Kingdom estimated that this trial highlighted the erosion of freedoms and the political opposition in the former British colony, returned to China in 1997.
At the start of the hearing, the prosecutors disputed the acquittal at first instance of the lawyer Lawrence Lau. Mr. Lau is one of the only two members of the “47 of Hong Kong” to have been declared not guilty.
“I never hong kong: beginning appeal trial new asked for the resignation of the chief of the executive. I never asked for the veto without distinction of the budget,” replied Mr. Lau, in reference to the accusations brought against the activists.
Eight opponents. including the ex-journalist who became a lawyer Claudia Mo and the LGBT+ rights defender Jimmy Sham, have served their sentence and have been released in recent weeks.
In parallel. one of the last opposition parties still active in Hong Kong, the League of Social Democrats (LSD), officially dissolved in late June, faced with what the formation described as “immense political pressure”.
Posted on July 14 at 12:57 p.m. AFP
Hong kong: beginning appeal trial new
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