The Hong Kong police announced Sunday (February 28th) prosecutions for “subversion” against nearly fifty members of the pro-democracy movement, the largest group indicted on the same day in the name of the draconian law on national security. The indictments come a month after a massive crackdown in which 55 people, including some of the best-known figures of the pro-democracy movement, were arrested.
Police said on Sunday that 47 had been charged with “conspiracy to commit an act of subversion,” one of the qualifications covered by the National Security Law that Beijing imposed on Hong Kong last year in response to months. protests that shook the city in 2019. The former British colony then went through its worst political crisis since its handover in 1997 to China.
A law imposed without debate
And Beijing undertook a strong takeover of its theoretically semi-autonomous region last year. This was notably embodied in the new law which was imposed at the end of June 2020 without debate within the Legislative Council (LegCo) of Hong Kong and tackles four types of crime: subversion, secession, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces. These prosecutions are punishable by life imprisonment.
Those indicted on Sunday represent a very broad spectrum of local opposition, with veteran former MPs like James To and Claudia Mo, academics, lawyers, social workers and many younger activists.
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