Hong Kong 47: Who are the campaigners jailed in controversial national security trial?

A court docket on Tuesday handed out jail sentences for a few of Hong Kong’s greatest pro-democracy icons, together with Joshua Wong and Benny Tai, in a controversial nationwide safety case.

They are a part of a gaggle generally known as the Hong Kong 47 who were charged three years ago in a crackdown beneath the nationwide safety legislation (NSL) imposed by China.

Two of them had been acquitted earlier this yr and the remaining 45 had been jailed on Tuesday.

Officials accused the eight ladies and 39 males of attempting to overthrow the federal government by operating an unofficial major to select opposition candidates for the Legislative Council (LegCo) election.

Held in July 2020, the first was geared toward serving to the opposition acquire a big sufficient foothold to dam the pro-Beijing authorities’s payments. It attracted greater than half 1,000,000 voters.

The major was seen as a method of constant the pro-democracy motion after the 2019 protests dwindled with the pandemic. It alarmed Beijing and Hong Kong officers, who warned that the transfer might breach the NSL which got here into impact days earlier than the first.

Organisers argued that their actions had been allowed beneath the Basic Law, the mini-constitution that governs Hong Kong and ensures it some freedoms.

But on the finish of the trial, the judges agreed with the prosecution’s argument that the plan would have created a constitutional disaster if the winners of the first had been elected as lawmakers.

Most of the defendants both pleaded responsible or had been convicted of conspiring to aim subversion.

Some are well-known figures akin to Wong and Tai, icons of the 2014 pro-democracy protests that rocked Hong Kong.

There are additionally well-known opposition lawmakers Claudia Mo, Helena Wong, Kwok ka-ki and Leung Kwok-hung who’s often known as Long Hair.

But many like Owen Chow, Ventus Lau and Tiffany Yuen represented a brand new era of vocal activists. Mr Lau and Mr Chow had been amongst lots of who stormed LegCo and spray-painted Hong Kong’s emblem in what turned a pivotal second within the 2019 protests.

Then there are those that weren’t concerned in politics however had been galvanised by the 2019 protests – social staff like Hendrick Lui, entrepreneurs like Mike Lam and a former nurse, Winnie Yu.

Most of the defendants have been in jail because the arrests in early 2021, as pre-trial detentions have grow to be the norm beneath the NSL.

Laurence Lau, a barrister and former district councillor, and Lee Yue-shun, additionally a former district councillor, had been acquitted in May.

One of the primary organisers of the 2020 major, Tai has been labelled by China as a “hardcore troublemaker” for allegedly advocating Hong Kong independence and describing the Communist Party’s rule as a “dictatorship”.

A scholar and legislation professor, Tai first rose to prominence in 2014 when he based the pro-democracy Occupy Central motion together with two others.

It was a historic civil disobedience marketing campaign that known as for honest and free elections in Hong Kong, and noticed lots of of hundreds take to the streets.

In 2019, Tai was sentenced to jail for his position within the Occupy Central protests.

A yr later, after the NSL was imposed, he was fired from his tenured job on the prestigious University of Hong Kong (HKU) over his felony conviction.

Tai accused the college of bowing to Chinese strain and known as it the “end of academic freedom” within the metropolis.

By then, he was already going through accusations of subversion beneath the NSL for organising the first.

He has been sentenced to 10 years in jail.

Arguably Hong Kong’s most well-known pro-democracy activist, Wong’s journey into activism began when he was simply 14.

By 2014, he had grow to be the face of the Umbrella Movement, a mass scholar protest with the umbrella as a logo, which sprang up alongside the Occupy Central sit-in.

He was simply 20 when his activism landed him in jail, the primary of what can be a number of convictions.

In 2019, Hong Kong erupted in months-long protests as lots of of hundreds marched in opposition to a massively controversial extradition invoice that will permit Hongkongers to be despatched to mainland China to face trial.

Wong was amongst hundreds who held a 15-hour siege of police headquarters within the Wan Chai district, pelting the constructing with eggs and spraying graffiti on its partitions, in June that yr.

While the demonstrations at the moment had been broadly seen as a spontaneous “leaderless” movement, prosecutors said he led that particular protest, pointing to a video of him calling for the crowd to “completely besiege police headquarters”.

He was jailed for his position in them, and positioned in solitary confinement.

But he remained defiant after pleading responsible: “Perhaps the authorities wish me to stay in prison one term after another. But I am persuaded that neither prison bars, nor election ban, nor any other arbitrary powers would stop us from activism.”

He was nonetheless serving his sentence when he was charged with subversion beneath the NSL.

He acquired a sentence of 4 years and eight months on Tuesday.

Former opposition lawmaker Leung Kwok-hung, higher generally known as Long Hair for his hairstyle, as soon as described himself as a “Marxist revolutionary”.

The 68-year-old was recognized for his political theatrics – certainly one of his signature strikes concerned hurling bananas as an indication of protest. When he was sworn in once more as a lawmaker in 2016, he launched a balloon with a political banner and held a yellow umbrella, declaring that the “Umbrella Movement would never end”.

This obtained him disqualified from the council. He was arrested and had repeated stints in jail for participating within the 2019 protests.

After the NSL was imposed in 2020, he married his long-time accomplice, Vanessa Chan, often known as Chan Po-ying, who’s a outstanding activist. They had been among the many founding members of a political occasion, the League of Social Democrats.

They mentioned they determined to marry as a result of ought to certainly one of them be jailed, they’d have better authorized rights akin to jail visitation.

Forty days after the marriage, Leung was charged.

He has been jailed for six years and 9 months.

Claudia Mo, recognized affectionately in Cantonese as Auntie Mo, was a outstanding opposition lawmaker.

She had been a journalist on the AFP information company, the place she coated the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown in Beijing.

The 67-year-old helped arrange the opposition Civic Party in 2006 and by 2012 she had received a seat in LegCo. She gave up British citizenship to carry workplace in Hong Kong.

She was amongst 15 lawmakers who resigned en masse from LegCo after 4 pro-democracy lawmakers had been ousted in November 2020. The transfer left LegCo with no opposition presence.

“We had to,” she said at the time. “We need to protest against what could be the ultimate Beijing crackdown on Hong Kong – to silence the last bit of dissent in the city.”

Police “smashed through into the living room” to arrest her within the early hours of 6 January 2021, the FT reported, citing an unnamed supply who described the raid as “sheer thuggery”.

She has been in jail since then. When her husband, British journalist Philip Bowring, was critically sick, Mo was not allowed to go to him from jail.

She was sentenced to 4 years and two months in jail.

A protracted-time political and LGBTQ activist, Jimmy Sham additionally led certainly one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy teams, the Civil Human Rights Front (CHRF).

The group disbanded in 2021, saying it might not function amid “unprecedented” challenges posed by China’s crackdown.

Sham was violently attacked a number of instances in 2019, and in a single occasion, was left on the streets with a head damage. The CHRF accused authorities supporters of this and different assaults in opposition to pro-democracy activists on the time, however it was by no means confirmed.

The 37-year-old married his accomplice in New York in 2013 and fought for Hong Kong to recognise abroad same-sex marriages. Hong Kong’s high court docket granted him a partial victory in 2023 when it ordered the federal government to determine a framework to recognise same-sex partnerships.

By then Sham was in detention for his position within the Hong Kong major.

He has been repeatedly denied bail, with a decide saying he was a “determined and resolute young man” who would possible proceed to commit “acts endangering national security” ought to he be launched.

He was sentenced on Tuesday to 4 years and three months in jail.

Before pivoting to politics, 33-year-old Gwyneth Ho had labored for a number of information at shops together with BBC Chinese, government-run broadcaster RTHK and Stand News.

She shot to fame in the course of the 2019 protests when she was crushed up by a mob whereas reporting on the motion. The assault landed her in hospital.

She ran within the 2020 major and received a excessive variety of votes in her constituency.

She mentioned throughout her trial that it was “inevitable” that the 12 pro-democracy candidates, together with her, had been disqualified from contesting the legislative elections.

“I believe that most Hongkongers knew deep down in their hearts that fighting for democracy under the Chinese communist regime has always been a fantasy,” she mentioned.

She has been sentenced to seven years in jail.

With picture contributions from Hong Kong InMedia