More overseas coverage of the HK47 trial

The Guardian…

The panel of Hong Kong national security judges had set down two days for the hearing but dispensed with the core business in about 15 minutes. In the city’s largest ever national security trial – involving the prosecution of pro-democracy campaigners and activists from a group known as the “Hong Kong 47” – almost all the defendants were found guilty of conspiracy to commit subversion.

Their crime was trying to win an election, holding unofficial primaries in 2020 attended by an estimated 600,000 residents.

…Claudia Mo, a former journalist and popular legislator known affectionately as “Auntie Mo”, pleaded guilty. Mo, a passionate but unflappable advocate for Hong Kong’s democracy, had frequently spoken to the foreign media over the years. For these conversations she was denied bail.

When police smashed through her front door, they also seized her phone and laptop, from which they presumably found the WhatsApp conversations she had had with the Guardian and Observer and other outlets. In jail, the 67-year-old has reportedly run language lessons for other prisoners. She was denied permission to visit her husband, British journalist Philip Bowring, when he was ill.

The Economist…

The three presiding judges wasted little time in presenting their verdicts in the case of the “Hong Kong 47”, members of the city’s pro-democracy political opposition. Over the course of two minutes on May 30th, the justices declared 14 of the defendants guilty of conspiracy to commit subversion in the biggest national-security trial in the city’s history.

…The verdicts, which are likely to result in prison sentences (in some cases for perhaps as long as life), represent the ongoing strangulation of dissent in Hong Kong.

…The most cynical view is that the government was growing embarrassed by its 100% conviction rate in such trials. But the justice secretary looks likely to appeal against the [two] not-guilty verdicts.

Perhaps feeling unease over endless NatSec arrests and trials, some pro-establishment figures have suggested in recent months that once the high-profile HK47 and Jimmy Lai cases are over, things will calm down. So far, that looks like wishful thinking. From big round-ups…

A Hong Kong woman, who was among seven arrested under the city’s new security law, has also been accused of violating the Beijing-imposed security law over funding overseas activist Nathan Law and others.

“Investigation revealed that she supported with money fugitive Law Kwun-chung and other individuals through an online subscription platform, with the amount of funding amounting to approximately $140,000, ” Hong Kong’s national security police said, referring to Law by his Chinese name, in a statement released on Friday afternoon.

…police said that the 53-year-old woman was also suspected of “providing pecuniary or other financial assistance or property for the commission of secession by other persons,”

…to hassling of small, apparently pro-democracy bookstores…

At around 4:30 today, police officers from the nearby Sham Shui Po police station went to Hunter Bookstore and accused them of blocking the street with their sofa outside. After the sofa was moved indoors, police started recording ID numbers of everyone who enters or leaves 

A summary of NatSec’s 47th month.

Nor does the government’s PR look likely to get any calmer, as the function comes under former law-enforcement officers. SCMP reports that former cop John Tse, currently the CE’s communications secretary, will become Government Information Coordinator…

He became a well-known face during 2019’s social unrest when he led the force’s daily press conferences while still a serving chief superintendent.

…Tse will earn between HK$249,500 (US$31,850) and HK$264,800 a month.

…Apollonia Liu Lee Ho-kei, the deputy secretary for security, was last month appointed to succeed Fletch Chan Wai-wai as director of information services.

Liu spearheaded the passage of the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance through the legislature in March.

She had earlier written letters to foreign media, such as Britain’s The Guardian, to “condemn” their reports on the new domestic national security law.