By Lisa Visentin
Hong Kong: Australian-Hong Kong dual citizen Gordon Ng has been convicted by a Hong Kong court on national security charges along with 13 other pro-democracy activists.
It’s the city’s biggest national security case under a law imposed by Beijing that has all but wiped out public dissent in the former British colony.
Gordon Ng was first detained in 2021.
Ng has been locked up since 2021 on the charges. The former student of Waverley College, Sydney, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison and will be sentenced at a later date.
A close friend of Ng who was in the Hong Kong courtroom when his guilty verdict was delivered said the outcome was devastating.
“The only thing we want to say to him is: ‘Whether it’s 10 years or 20 years, we will wait for you’,” said the friend, who requested anonymity to speak given the sensitivity of the situation.
Others found guilty include former legislators Leung Kwok-hung, Lam Cheuk-ting, Helena Wong and Raymond Chan. But the three judges approved by the government to oversee the case acquitted two former district councillors, Lee Yue-shun and Lawrence Lau.
Raymond Chan, a former pro-democracy legislator, arrives at the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts in Hong Kong on Thursday. Credit: AP
They were among 47 democracy advocates who were prosecuted in 2021 for their involvement in an unofficial primary election. Prosecutors had accused them of attempting to paralyse Hong Kong’s government and topple the city’s leader by securing the legislative majority necessary to indiscriminately veto budgets.
Legal researcher Kevin Yam – who, along with former Hong Kong politician Ted Hui, had bounties for their arrest issued by Chinese authorities for alleged national security offences while residing in Australia – said the federal government needed to step up its diplomatic efforts to secure Ng’s early release. He noted the irony of Ng’s verdict landing on the same day as China lifted its ban on Australian beef exports.
“We can’t ever forget about people like Gordon, or [jailed Australian writer] Yang Hengjun just because we’re getting our meat back,” Yam said.
“The Australian government is happily saying Chinese sanctions are lifted on our meatworks, and yet we have one of our own being convicted for exercising free speech rights that would be considered normal in Australia.”
Hui, now a lawyer in Adelaide after fleeing to Australia via London in 2021, said the judgment was a gross miscarriage of justice that would open the floodgates for future prosecutions against citizens exercising their basic democratic rights.
“Regarding defendant Gordon Ng, the court heavily relied on his political belief in freedom to claim he was part of an ‘illegal scheme’. This is purely a punishment based on his speech and political opinions, blatantly violating human rights,” Hui said.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong said the government was deeply concerned by the guilty verdicts handed to Ng and the others, and would continue to request consular access to Ng which has so far been denied by Hong Kong authorities.
“Australia has expressed our strong objections to the Hong Kong authorities on the continuing broad application of national security legislation to arrest and pressure pro-democracy figures, opposition groups, media, trade unions and civil society,” Wong said in a statement.
Observers said the subversion case illustrated how the security law was being used to crush the political opposition following huge anti-government protests in 2019. The Beijing and Hong Kong governments have claimed the law has helped bring back stability to the city and that judicial independence is being protected.
When Britain handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997, Beijing promised to retain the city’s Western-style civil liberties for 50 years. However, since the introduction of the 2020 law, Hong Kong authorities have severely limited free speech and assembly under the rubric of maintaining national security. Many activists were arrested, silenced or forced into self-exile. Dozens of civil society groups disbanded.
The prosecution of the primary case involves pro-democracy activists across the spectrum. They include legal scholar Benny Tai, former student leader Joshua Wong and a dozen former legislators like Leung Kwok-hung and Claudia Mo.
Thirty-one of them, including Tai, Wong and Mo, pleaded guilty to the charge of conspiracy to commit subversion. They have a better chance at shorter jail terms and will be sentenced at a later date.
Sixteen others, including Leung, pleaded not guilty and underwent a non-jury trial. After the verdicts, mitigation hearings will be scheduled to determine the sentences of those convicted.
Dozens of residents had lined up outside the police-guarded court building before 6am on Thursday to secure a seat in the public gallery for the verdicts. Some supporters who were among the first in the line came as early as Wednesday evening.
Social worker Stanley Chang, a friend of one of the 16 defendants, said he arrived the site at 4am because he had feared he could not get a seat. Chang said there were very few things supporters could do for the accused and that attending the hearing was a kind of company.
“I want to give some support for my friend and the faces I saw in news reports,” said Chang, who is in his 30s.
S. L. Chiu, who only gave his initials due to fear of government retribution, said the hearing marked a historic moment. To show his support, he said he had collected messages for the 47 activists from others in a sketchbook and planned to mail them if possible.
“Hongkongers are still here. We haven’t given up. We are still with you all,” he said.
The July 2020 primary ballot was meant to shortlist pro-democracy candidates who would then run in the official election. It drew an unexpectedly high turnout of 610,000 voters, representing more than 13 per cent of the city’s registered electorate.
The pro-democracy camp at that time hoped they could secure a legislative majority, which would allow them to press for the 2019 protest demands, including greater police accountability and democratic elections for the city leader.
But the government postponed the legislative election that would have followed the primary, citing public health risks during the coronavirus pandemic. The electoral laws were later overhauled, drastically reducing the public’s ability to vote and increasing the number of pro-Beijing politicians making decisions for the city in the legislature.
Beijing also had criticised the vote as a challenge to the security law, which criminalises secession, subversion and collusion with foreign forces to intervene in the city’s affairs as well as terrorism.
with AP
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