The first month of 2025 saw a Hong Kong polling organisation and its chief executive investigated by national security police.
Hong Kong pollster Robert Chung (second from left) being taken to the office of the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute in Wong Chuk Hang by police for an investigation on January 13, 2025. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP.
Meanwhile, the trial of jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai continued, and judges at the apex court heard the city’s first appeal against a conviction and sentence under a colonial-era sedition law.
Pollster under investigation
Robert Chung, CEO of the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute (PORI), was questioned by national security police on January 13 and again on January 27. Officers also raided the polling organisation’s office, removing three trolley-loads of items, including what appeared to be computer servers.
Hong Kong police remove items from the office of the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute in Wong Chuk Hang, on January 13, 2025. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP.
Speaking to reporters, Secretary for Security Chris Tang refused to go into details about the case, citing the ongoing investigation, but said the police probe had “absolutely nothing to do with the results of [PORI’s] polls.”
“This is nothing to do with any research being done by [Robert] Chung and his organisation,” Tang said. “The whole investigation is focusing on how [Robert] Chung and his organisation assist the absconder.”
Police later told HKFP that Robert Chung was “suspected of using his own company to render assistance to a wanted person who has absconded overseas, in continuing activities endangering national security in Hong Kong.”
The wife of Hong Kong ex-pollster Chung Kim-wah leaves Tin Shui Wai Police Station on January 14, 2025, after being brought in for questioning about her husband, who is on a wanted list for allegedly violating the national security law. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP.
Chung Kim-wah left Hong Kong for the UK in April 2022 citing fears of censorship. He is among 19 people wanted by Hong Kong police on suspicion of committing national security offences.
Li was accused of “publishing statements, photos, and/or pictures on Facebook with an intent to bring people into hatred, contempt or disaffection against” Hong Kong, and inciting violence or unlawful acts between March 29 last year and January 21.
He was denied bail and his case will next be mentioned in court on March 3.
Alliance appeal over ‘foreign agent’ claim
Hong Kong’s top judge Andrew Cheung on January 8 questioned whether allowing certain information to be kept from activists Chow Hang-tung, Tang Ngok-kwan, and Tsui Hon-kwong throughout an earlier national security trial had made it “impossible” to offer them a fair trial.
Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal, in Central, on August 12, 2024. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP.
Chow, Tang, and Tsui – who were members of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, which organised the city’s annual Tiananmen crackdown vigils before it disbanded in September 2021 – were sentenced to four and a half months in jail in 2023 for failing to comply with a national security police request.
During the trial and appeals at lower courts, heavily redacted information was presented as evidence that the Alliance had acted as a “foreign agent.” The trio rejected the categorisation and argued that the withholding of such information had denied them a fair trial.
Tam was the first person to stand trial for sedition since Kong Kong’s return from British to Chinese rule in 1997. His prosecution came after authorities revived the colonial-era legislation following the enactment of the Beijing-imposed national security law in June 2020 that did not cover sedition.
Lai, who has pleaded not guilty to two charges of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces under a Beijing-imposed security law and a third charge of conspiracy to publish “seditious” materials under colonial-era legislation, was asked about alleged efforts to strengthen ties between Taiwan and the US.
If convicted of the national security charges, Lai faces spending the rest of his life behind bars. He is currently serving a five year and nine month sentence for fraud charges relating to a lease violation of Apple Daily’s headquarters. On January 15, Lai sought to overturn that jail term and conviction at the Court of Appeal.
In response, the city’s government on January 17 condemned what it called a “malicious attack,” saying it “strongly disapproves of and condemns the malicious attack by the United States (US) through signing a memorandum, which… expands the Deferred Enforced Departure eligibility for certain Hong Kong residents in the US.”
Biden introduced the Deferred Enforced Departure in August 2021, citing the need to offer Hongkongers a “safe haven” following the Beijing-imposed national security law and the arrests of over 10,000 people over the anti-extradition protests in 2019.
Courts not ‘extension of prosecution authority’
At the opening of Hong Kong’s legal year on January 20, Chief Justice Andrew Cheung defended the city’s rule of law, saying its courts were not “an extension of prosecution authority.”
Cheung said that national security cases, despite attracting attention due to their “political sensitivity,” were no different from other cases handled by the city’s courts. “The same principles of law apply in national security cases as in others,” he said. “Judges at all levels are expected to, and indeed do, adhere to them in the adjudication of cases.”
Chief Justice Andrew Cheung at the ceremonial opening of the Legal Year on January 20, 2024. Photo: GovHK.
“Judges, far from being designed to serve political ends, are bound by legal principles. Courts are not arbiters of public opinion, nor are they an extension of the prosecution authority; they are, above all, guardians of the law,” Cheung added.
High-profile national security cases in Hong Kong have drawn international criticism, including one in which 45 pro-democracy figures were sentenced for up to 10 years in jail for conspiring to commit subversion over their roles in an unofficial primary election.
Arrest and prosecution figures
As of January 1, a total of 316 people had been arrested for “cases involving suspected acts or activities that endanger national security” since Beijing’s national security law came into effect, according to the Security Bureau. The number includes those arrested under Article 23, known officially as the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance.
Of the 182 people and five companies who have so far been charged, 161 people and one company have been convicted or are awaiting sentencing.
Among them, 91 people and four companies have been charged under the national security law, with 76 convicted. Four people have been charged under Article 23, three of whom have been convicted.
“Endangering national security is considered a serious crime and may also involve sensitive activities that pose a threat to national security,” the Security Bureau said. “As revealing specific arrest figures and information related to these activities could have an impact on operational deployment, no breakdown of the arrest statistics would be disclosed to the public.”
HKFP has reached out to the bureau for updated arrest and prosecution figures.
