Hong Kong appeals court upholds jailing of 12 democracy campaigners

HONG KONG – A Hong Kong appeals court on Feb 23 upheld the convictions and sentences of a dozen democracy campaigners jailed for subversion during the city’s largest trial under a Beijing-imposed national security law.

The 12 appellants were among 45 opposition figures, including some of the city’s best-known activists, who were sentenced to prison in 2024 for organising an unofficial primary election that the authorities deemed a subversive plot.

The 2020 polls had hoped to improve the chances of pro-democracy lawmakers winning a majority in the legislature so that they could then threaten to veto the city budget unless the government accepted demands like universal suffrage.

On Feb 23, High Court Chief Judge Jeremy Poon said the polls were devised as part of a “constitutional weapon of mass destruction”, which was unlawful, even without the threat of using force.

“The pursuit for universal suffrage does not entitle (a person) to embark on a plan... for the purpose of seriously interfering in or destroying the constitutional order,” Judge Poon wrote.

The three-judge panel dismissed appeals from the 12 appellants, including former lawmaker “Long Hair” Leung Kwok-hung, former journalist Gwyneth Ho and Gordon Ng, an Australian citizen.

The campaigners smiled and waved from the dock to their supporters in the public gallery, which included defendants in the same case who had finished serving time.

Leung’s wife and pro-democracy activist Chan Po-ying said the outcome was “absurd” and that judges “presumed that the defendants wanted to subvert state power”.

Amnesty International Hong Kong Overseas spokesman Fernando Cheung said the court had “missed a critical opportunity to correct this mass injustice”.

Informal election

The high-profile “Hong Kong 47” case stemmed from the aftermath of huge, sometimes violent pro-democracy protests that convulsed Hong Kong from 2019.

In June 2020, Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law that snuffed out most dissent in the semi-autonomous city.

A record number of voters turned out for the primary election the following month to select pro-democracy candidates for a legislative election later that year.

In 2021, the authorities rounded up the opposition figures in a mass arrest that drew international condemnation and deepened fears that the security law had eroded freedoms.

The group, aged between 28 and 69, included democratically elected lawmakers and district councillors, as well as unionists, academics and others ranging from modest reformists to radical localists.

In 2024, the court convicted 45 people and acquitted two.

During the appeal hearing in 2025, defence lawyer Erik Shum said lawmakers should be allowed to veto the budget as a form of “check and balance”, as stated in Hong Kong’s mini-Constitution.

Mr Shum said lawmakers should not be answerable to the courts over how they vote because of the separation of powers.

The appeal judges wrote on Feb 23 that coordination was “inevitable” for the executive and legislative branches of government.

The judges accepted that Hong Kong’s mini-Constitution allowed lawmakers to veto a budget, but said “that occasion must be extremely rare”.

Varying jail terms

The 45 convicted campaigners were given sentences ranging from four years and two months to 10 years, depending on their role and whether they received reduced penalties.

After the defeat on Feb 23, the appellants can take their case to Hong Kong’s top court, though they have yet to confirm if they will do that.

As at January, 18 other defendants who did not contest their convictions have been released after completing their prison sentences.

Most of them have kept a low profile and refrained from commenting on politics. The handful who watched the court session on Feb 23 declined to speak to the media.

Prosecutors had challenged the acquittal of barrister Lawrence Lau, one of the two people found not guilty.

On Feb 23, the court upheld the acquittal, saying that the trial judges were right to have doubts about Lau’s subversive intent. AFP