HONG KONG – A Hong Kong court will hear appeals starting on Monday from 13 democracy campaigners who were jailed for subversion last year during the city’s largest national security trial.
They were among 45 opposition figures, including some of Hong Kong’s best-known democracy activists, who were sentenced in November over a 2020 informal primary election that authorities deemed a subversive plot.
Critics including the United States, Britain and the European Union said the case showed how a Beijing-imposed national security law has eroded freedoms and quashed peaceful opposition in Hong Kong.
Ex-lawmakers “Long Hair” Leung Kwok-hung, Lam Cheuk-ting, Helena Wong and Raymond Chan are among those contesting their convictions and sentences in hearings that are scheduled to last 10 days.
Owen Chow, a 28-year-old activist who was sentenced to seven years and nine months in jail — the harshest penalty among the 13 — has also lodged an appeal.
Some of the appellants have already spent more than four years behind bars.
Amnesty International’s China director Sarah Brooks said the appeal will be a “pivotal test” for free expression in the Chinese finance hub.
“Only by overturning these convictions can Hong Kong’s courts begin to restore the city’s global standing as a place where rights are respected and where people are allowed to peacefully express their views without fear of arrest,” Brooks said.
Prosecutors will concurrently challenge on Monday the lower court’s acquittal of lawyer Lawrence Lau, one of two people found not guilty from an original group of 47 accused.
Activist Tam Tak-chi, who pleaded guilty in the subversion case, had also indicated he would appeal against his sentence but withdrew.
