Veteran Hong Kong activists convicted over organisation of huge August 2019 democracy rally
Nine veteran Hong Kong activists face jail after being convicted on Thursday on unlawful assembly charges for organizing one of the biggest democracy protests to engulf the city in 2019. The defendants include some of the city’s most prominent pro-democracy campaigners, many of whom are non-violence advocates who have spent decades campaigning in vain for universal suffrage. They are the latest democracy figures prosecuted as China oversees a sweeping crackdown on dissent in the restless financial hub.
Martin Lee, an 82-year-old barrister who Beijing once chose to help write Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, and Margaret Ng, a 73-year-old barrister and former opposition lawmaker.
Media tycoon Jimmy Lai, currently in custody after his arrest under Beijing’s new national security law, was convicted.
Leung Kwok-hung, an opposition politician known by his nickname “Longhair,” who has also been detained on national security charges, was also sent down.
Others are leading members of the Civil Human Rights Front (CHRF), the coalition that organized a series of massive rallies throughout 2019.
On Thursday, seven were found guilty by the Hong Kong District Court of organizing and knowingly participating in an unauthorized assembly.
Two others had previously pleaded guilty. They face up to five years in jail.
Massive rally
The group was prosecuted for organizing an unauthorized assembly on 18 August 2019 – one of Hong Kong’s biggest. People took to the streets for seven months, calling for democracy and greater police accountability.
Organizers claimed 1.7 million people turned out – almost one in four Hong Kong residents – though that number was difficult to verify independently.
It was quickly one of the biggest rallies that year, with dense crowds marching peacefully for hours under a sea of umbrellas and thundery skies.
Protests in Hong Kong can only go ahead with authorities’ permission, and rights groups have long criticized using unauthorized assembly prosecutions.
Prosecutors accused the group of defying police instructions that day and encouraging crowds to march across Hong Kong’s main island, causing traffic disruption.
This trial caused controversy before it began.
British lawyer David Perry, hired by the Hong Kong government as the lead prosecutor, stepped down following withering criticism from the UK government and British legal bodies over his decision to take the job. Since 2019 protests have been outlawed, with authorities refusing permission on security grounds or later because of the pandemic.
The rallies in 2019 often descended into clashes between riot police and a knot of hardcore participants. They posed the most concerted challenge to China’s rule since the former British colony’s 1997 handover.
The movement eventually fizzled out under the combined weight of exhaustion, some 10,000 arrests, and the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic. Since authorities have unleashed a broad crackdown, Beijing has imposed a new security law that criminalizes much dissent. China and Hong Kong’s leaders say the law is needed to restore stability to the financial hub. Critics counter that Beijing has shredded the liberties and autonomy it promised Hong Kong could maintain after the handover.
