On the occasion of the start today of the trial against 47 defenders of democracy Under the National Security Law, Amnesty International Deputy Regional Director Hana Young has said:
“This cause has been an obscene injustice since the unprecedented mass prosecution of the 47 accused persons began in March 2021.”
“In a trial that exposes the inherently abusive nature of the national security law, some of defendants face life in prison simply for participating in a political party’s ‘primaries’.”
“They are forced to make the impossible decision to plead guilty to a non-existent crime for a possible reduced sentence, or to fight a losing battle under the unfair national security law.
“Most of the 47 people wear two years imprisoned without trial as a result of the extremely restrictive threshold for obtaining bail, which means that, in practice, bail is not granted in national security cases. No matter what happens at trial, this injustice can no longer be reversed.”
“With this mass trial, the Hong Kong government is attempting to close any space for meaningful political participation in Hong Kong. But the fact that people have come to the court today to protest against these prosecutions, despite the risk involved, has shown that the Hong Kong authorities will never be able to fully crush dissent.”
“People should be able to freely express their opinions in Hong Kong, without risking jail time. Peaceful political opposition is not a crime.”
“The charges against the 47 individuals are based entirely on the hypothetical alleged threats to national security. All those still held in this case must be released immediately, and the charges against them must be dropped.”
Additional information
In Hong Kong’s largest case under the national security law, which came into effect in June 2020, the 47 people are jointly charged with “conspiracy to commit subversion”.
The charges relate to his organizing and participation in a self-organized “primary” for the 2020 Legislative Council elections, which the authorities eventually postponed because the Chinese central government introduced a new electoral system that strictly controlled who could run for office. the elections.
At the time, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said the “primaries” were illegal and warned they could breach national security law, enacted just weeks earlier.
Treating the self-organized “primaries” conducted by political parties to select their electoral candidates as a real threat to the existence, territorial integrity and political independence of Hong Kong does not meet the high threshold of application of the “national security” criterion that required by international human rights standards.