Lai and other jailed Democrats still await trial

There are 1,121 political prisoners in the former British colony. The trial against the Catholic media tycoon will begin on December 1. The ongoing trial against Albert Ho and Lee Cheuk-yan. For the jurist Benny Tai, there is no precise date. New postponement of the trial against Cardinal Joseph Zen.

Hong Kong () – In the former British colony there are 1,121 political prisoners, according to the figure provided by the Hong Kong Democracy Council on August 29. Among those detained are leaders of NGOs, trade unions and protest groups, as well as journalists, activists, teachers, students, opposition politicians and lawyers.

Many of them are well-known figures on the democratic front, such as Catholic media mogul Jimmy Lai. Although he has already been sentenced for participating in unauthorized demonstrations, the founder of the independent daily appledaily (closed long ago) will be tried as of December 1 for a much more serious charge: threat to national security.

Along with other activists and collaborators, Lai is accused of “collusion with foreign forces,” a crime under Beijing’s draconian security law imposed in 2020. The trial in the high court is expected to last more than 30 days. The democratic tycoon could be sentenced to life in prison.

More than 1,000 citizens are being tried for charges of a political nature. Many are already in prison, the vast majority accused of threatening national security, sedition and rioting.

Three former leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, the organization that used to organize the traditional June 4 vigil every year to commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, are being prosecuted. a year after the opening of an investigation against him. In the case, Albert Ho, Lee Cheuk-yan and Chow Hang-tung are charged with “inciting subversion” under the security law. Ho was arrested in September 2021 and is out on bail, while Lee and Chow are in pre-trial detention.

Still in jail and awaiting their trial date are 34 of the 47 Democrats arrested last year for organizing the primary elections for the renewal of the LegCo (the city parliament) initially scheduled for September 2020. At least 29 of they are going to plead guilty to the crime of subversion, among them the jurist Benny Tai, one of the leaders of the 2014 Occupy Central movement, and the well-known pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong – both are already in prison.

The repression imposed by the city authorities after the 2019 demonstrations – and especially after the adoption, in 2020, of the National Security Law imposed by Beijing – has restricted, suspended or effectively annulled the rights of assembly, association, expression and political participation.

Not even figures like card are saved from the repression. Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, accused, along with five other pro-democracy personalities, of incorrectly registering a humanitarian fund of which they were administrators. The trial was due to start yesterday at the West Kowloon Court, but was postponed for two days because the judge in charge of the case, Ada Yim Shun-yee, tested positive for Covid-19. However, in the lists of the court in question, there are no hearings with the card. Zen on September 21, neither today nor tomorrow.

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