If found guilty of “conspiracy to commit subversion”, they could be sentenced to a maximum life sentence in prison.
The accused were among 53 people – many former parliamentarians, activists and district councilors – who were arrested last month for organizing, planning and running in the primary elections for the city’s democratic opposition in July.
The event was designed to identify the strongest pro-democracy candidates who will run in the legislative council elections scheduled for September last year, when the opposition camp hoped to win a historic majority.
However, these elections were eventually postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic, but not before several candidates for democracy were disqualified – and warnings that those running in the mayor’s office could violate the security law since then. a few weeks.
The 39 men and eight women charged on Sunday, aged between 23 and 64, are being held and will appear in West Kowloon magistrates’ courts on Monday. According to their initial bail agreements, they were not asked to check with the police until early April. But earlier this week, the group was asked to report to police on Sunday.
Sunday’s allegations mark a radical escalation in the application of the national security law, according to which only a handful of people had previously been charged and prosecuted.
The law criminalizes secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign powers, and cases provided for by law can be dealt with by a dedicated branch of the Hong Kong police and national security courts.
Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam and others have previously promised that the law will be limited and will target only a small number of marginal activists.
Anyone who fails to take the oath – or is deemed to have done so dishonestly – will be immediately disqualified from office and banned from running in the next five years, said Constitutional and Continental Affairs Secretary Erick Tsang.
It came after Hong Kong’s only delegate to China’s highest legislature said only “fierce patriots” should be allowed to hold authority in Hong Kong.
Why punish the primary election?
Primary elections are a normal function in democracies around the world. At the time of the Hong Kong vote, the Democratic mayors in the United States, which Biden won, were still running. Pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong have supported such votes in the past, in an attempt to align with the organization and discipline of the rival pro-Beijing camp and to avoid divided support.
The Hong Kong Secretary of Security, however, accused those who organized the July mayors of trying to “paralyze the Hong Kong government” by winning a majority in the legislature to veto government bills.
Voting against the budget and forcing the chief executive to resign would have been legal before the national security law, similar to a “vote of no confidence” that leads to general elections in many democracies. The city’s constitution also contains provisions to deal with such an event, allowing the chief executive to call new legislative elections and adopt a preliminary budget to allow the government to continue to function.
When dozens of former lawmakers and opposition activists were arrested in January, Anthony Blinken, now US Secretary of State, said that “radical arrests of pro-democracy demonstrators are an attack on those who bravely advocate for universal rights.”
“The Biden-Harris administration will stand by the people of Hong Kong and against Beijing’s repression of democracy,” Blinken added.
UK Foreign Minister Dominic Raab warned in January that the British government “will not look elsewhere when the rights and autonomy of the Hong Kong people are destroyed”.
“When China first imposed national security legislation, they said it had to bring some stability to Hong Kong. What is clear from these actions is that it is actually designed to crush political dissent,” he said. Raab for CNN during an interview in London.