Four Hong Kong democracy campaigners who were jailed for up to seven years and nine months in the city’s largest national security case to date have sought to challenge their convictions and sentences.
Helena Wong arrives at Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Law Courts Building to hear his verdict, on May 30, 2024. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP.
The High Court on Tuesday received appeal applications from activist Owen Chow, former lawmaker Helena Wong, ex-district councillor Clarisse Yeung and former union leader Winnie Yu, local media reported on Wednesday. They were found guilty and jailed after a 118-day trial over a conspiracy to commit subversion.
The appeal bids were lodged a week after the four faced sentencing alongside 41 democrats, including prominent activist Joshua Wong and former law professor Benny Tai. Their sentences ranged from four years and two months to 10 years behind bars, depending on their roles in a scheme that centred around an unofficial legislative primary election held in July 2020.
As an initiator of an online petition to rally “radical” candidates, Chow received the second longest prison term of seven years and nine months. The 27-year-old activist was ordered to serve his term on top of a jail sentence of around five years, which he received in March for storming the legislative building on July 1, 2019.
Yu was sentenced to six years and nine months, while Wong and Yeung were both jailed for six and a half years.
Owen Chow. Photo: Owen Chow, via Facebook.
Their appeal hearings have not been scheduled.
HKFP has reached out to the Department of Justice for confirmation.
At the centre of the case was the July 2020 election primary, through which the opposition camp hoped to identify candidates to help it win majority control of the legislature in an upcoming election.
Three handpicked judges ruled that the democrats had intended to abuse their powers to indiscriminately veto the government budget and force the chief executive to resign if they had indeed won a majority.
Clarisse Yeung arrives at Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Law Courts Building to hear her verdict, on May 30, 2024. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP.
In a 319-page judgement in May, the judges wrote that Tai’s goal was to “undermine, destroy or overthrow the existing political system and structure of [Hong Kong] established under the Basic Law and the policy of One Country, Two Systems.” This would have plunged the city into a “constitutional crisis,” they ruled.
Last Tuesday, Secretary for Security Chris Tang said the sentences reflected the “severity” of the democrats’ offences. The Hong Kong government would consider whether to appeal for longer sentences for some of those jailed, he added.
