Hong Kong Watch calls on Hong Kong authorities to drop charges and release the 47 former legislators and activists facing prosecution under the National Security Law

Hong Kong Watch today calls on the Hong Kong authorities to drop charges against 47 former elected legislators and activists under Hong Kong’s National Security Law, and to release them immediately.

The 47 former legislators, trade unionists, academics and activists face prosecution for “conspiracy to commit subversion” for helping to organise a primary election in July 2020 for the pro-democracy camp to help choose pro-democracy candidates to contest the Legislative Council elections scheduled at the time for September 2020. Five of them – legal scholar Benny Tai, former legislator Au Nok-hin, former district councillors Chiu Ka-yin and Chung Kam-lun, and activist Gordon Ng Ching-hang have been named by the prosecution as “major organisers”. Article 22 of the National Security Law states that a “principal offender” could face a sentence of between 10 years and life in prison, and while the five activists named as “major organisers” have not yet been identified as “principal offenders”, they could face a very severe prison sentence.

Last Thursday, 18 August a Hong Kong court lifted a ban on media reporting on their case. Two days earlier, on 16 August, Hong Kong’s Justice Secretary Paul Lam ordered that their case be tried without a jury, breaking the long-established custom for the Hong Kong Court of First Instance.

Benedict Rogers, Chief Executive of Hong Kong Watch, said: “This is an entirely politically-motivated prosecution of 47 individuals whose only ‘crime’ was to participate in a democratic selection process to choose their candidates for the Legislative Council elections. The charges against them are absurd and outrageous, and many of them have been detained for almost 18 months since their arrest in February 2021, without bail and awaiting trial. Now they are to be denied even the basic right of a trial by jury, and several of them face potentially very long, severe sentences. They should be immediately released and the charges against them should be dropped. We urge the international community to put pressure on the Chinese and Hong Kong governments to drop this case.”