Hong Kong is hosting from Monday the macro trial against 47 pro-democracy protesters for the crimes of conspiracy and subversion for their role in holding a primary election in July 2020 to elect parliamentary candidates for the failed September polls.
It is the largest operation under the National Security Law imposed by China since the measure went into effect on June 30, 2020. Most of the defendants, including former deputies such as Claudia Mo and Leung Kwok Hung, jurist Benny Tai, or student leader Joshua Wong, face a maximum of life imprisonment The case dates back to January 2021, when most of them were arrested, and two months later the first charges were filed. Since then, some thirty of them have remained under arrest and without the right to bail, as established by the new Security Law approved by Beijing.
More than 600,000 Hong Kongers went to the polls called by the pro-democracy political movement in July 2020, considered illegal by the authorities, whose results were to be used to elect the candidates for the September Legislative Council elections, which were finally postponed due to the pandemic crisis.
The aim of these primaries was to obtain a majority of 35 seats or more for the September elections, with which to veto the budgets of the Hong Kong Government, who called them illegal and incapacitated twelve of the candidates, including the media personality Wong, on remand since November 2019 after pleading guilty for participating in the unauthorized protests in front of a police station in June of the same year.
The trial is expected to last at least 90 days, although it is not the only one to be held throughout this year in relation to alleged violations of the National Security Act.
In September, media tycoon Jimmy Lai, founder of the now defunct ‘Apple Daily’, faces trial for allegedly collaborating with foreign powers to issue economic sanctions against Hong Kong and China.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
