Police stand guard outside the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts building, as the Hong Kong court convicted 14 pro-democracy activists in the city’s biggest national security case on May 30, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

A Hong Kong court on May 30 convicted 14 pro-democracy activists in the city’s biggest national security case under a law imposed by Beijing that has all but wiped out public dissent.

Those who were found guilty included former lawmakers Leung Kwok-hung, Lam Cheuk-ting, Helena Wong and Raymond Chan. But the three judges approved by the government to oversee the case acquitted two former district councilors Lee Yue-shun and Lawrence Lau.

They were among 47 democracy advocates who were prosecuted in 2021 for their involvement in an unofficial primary election. Prosecutors had accused them of attempting to paralyze Hong Kong’s government and topple the city’s leader by securing the legislative majority necessary to indiscriminately veto budgets.

The 16 defendants were among 47 democracy advocates who were prosecuted in 2021 for their involvement in an unofficial primary election under the sweeping law. They were accused of attempting to paralyze Hong Kong’s government and topple the city’s leader by securing the legislative majority necessary to indiscriminately veto budgets.

Observers said their subversion case will illustrate how the security law is being used to crush the political opposition following huge anti-government protests in 2019. But the Beijing and Hong Kong governments insist the law has helped bring back stability to the city and that judicial independence is being protected.

When Britain handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997, Beijing promised to retain the city’s Western-style civil liberties for 50 years. However, since the introduction of the 2020 law, Hong Kong authorities have severely limited free speech and assembly under the rubric of maintaining national security. Many activists were arrested, silenced or forced into self-exile. Dozens of civil society groups disbanded.

The prosecution of the primary case involves pro-democracy activists across the spectrum. They include legal scholar Benny Tai, former student leader Joshua Wong and a dozen former lawmakers including Leung Kwok-hung and Claudia Mo.

Thirty-one of them, including Tai, Wong and Mo, pleaded guilty to the charge of conspiracy to commit subversion. They have a better chance at shorter jail terms and will be sentenced at a later date.

The 16 others, including Leung, who pleaded not guilty and underwent a non-jury trial, are expected to appear in a two-day hearing starting Thursday.

Dozens of residents were lined up outside the police-guarded court building before 6 a.m. to secure a seat in the public gallery. Some supporters who were among the first in the line came as early as Wednesday evening.

Social worker Stanley Chang, a friend of one of the 16 defendants, said he arrived the site at 4 a.m. because he feared he could not get a seat. Mr. Chang said there were very few things supporters could do for them and that attending the hearing is a kind of company.

“I want to give some support for my friend and the faces I saw in news reports,” he said, who is in his 30s.

SL Chiu, who only gave his initials due to fear of government retribution, said the hearing marked a historic moment. To show his support, he said he had collected messages for the 47 activists from others in a sketchbook and planned to mail them if possible.

“Hong Kongers are still here. We haven’t given up. We are still with you all,” he said.

On Wednesday night, Lee Yue-shun, one of the accused, said on Facebook that Thursday was like a special graduation ceremony for him, though graduation is usually about sharing happiness with families and friends. “This perhaps best reflects the common helplessness of our generation,” he said.

The July 2020 primary was meant to shortlist pro-democracy candidates who would then run in the official election. It drew an unexpectedly high turnout of 610,000 voters, representing over 13% of the city’s registered electorate.

The pro-democracy camp at that time hoped they could secure a legislative majority, which would allow them to press for the 2019 protest demands, including greater police accountability and democratic elections for the city leader.

But the government postponed the legislative election that would have followed the primary, citing public health risks during the coronavirus pandemic. The electoral laws were later overhauled, drastically reducing the public’s ability to vote and increasing the number of pro-Beijing lawmakers making decisions for the city in the legislature.

Beijing also had criticized the vote as a challenge to the security law, which criminalizes secession, subversion and collusion with foreign forces to intervene in the city’s affairs as well as terrorism.

A file photo of a participant holding rainbow umbrella as he attends a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Pride Parade in Hong Kong.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

A Hong Kong court on Tuesday dismissed a government bid to deny same-sex married couples the right to rent and own public housing saying that it was “discriminatory in nature” and a complete denial of such couples’ rights.

The ruling by Hong Kong’s Court of Appeal is the latest in a series of legal breakthroughs for gay rights advocates in the global financial hub this year.

The government had challenged two High Court rulings that it was “unconstitutional and unlawful” for the city’s housing authority to exclude same-sex couples who married abroad from public housing.

The appeal involved two cases, one in which the authority had declined to consider a permanent resident’s application to rent a public flat with his husband, because their marriage in Canada was not recognised in Hong Kong.

The other involved a same-sex couple who were denied joint-ownership of a government-subsidised flat by the authority because their marriage in Britain was not recognised in Hong Kong.

Court of Appeal justices Jeremy Poon, Aarif Barma and Thomas Au said in a written judgment that the authority’s treatment of gay married couples was “discriminatory in nature” and they should be afforded equal treatment.

“The differential treatment in the present cases is a more severe form of indirect discrimination than most cases because the criterion is one which same-sex couples can never meet,” the judges said in their ruling.

One of the men involved in the second case, Henry Li, welcomed the ruling in a post on Facebook.

Rights group Hong Kong Marriage Equality also welcomed the decision saying it had made clear “that discrimination and unequal treatment on the ground of sexual orientation has no place in public policy decisions”.

Hong Kong’s top court in September ruled against same-sex marriage but acknowledged the need for same-sex couples “for access to an alternative legal framework in order to meet basic social requirements”.

The government was given two years to come up with the framework.

A Hong Kong court in September sided with a married lesbian couple who argued that both women should have parental status over their child born via reciprocal IVF.

Activists in other parts of Asia are watching Hong Kong’s courts in the hope that their rulings could influence campaigns for reform elsewhere.

(Reporting by Jessie Pang; Editing by James Pomfret, Robert Birsel)

As Hong Kong does not recognise same-sex marriages, the two women in the case — who were granted anonymity by the court — were married and underwent RIVF in South Africa. Image for representation purpose only. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

A Hong Kong court has sided with a lesbian couple who argued that both women should have parental status over their child born via “reciprocal IVF”, a ruling hailed as a win for the LGBTQ community.

The medical procedure of reciprocal in vitro fertilisation (RIVF) allows two women to share in the process of childbearing and is credited with helping same-sex couples start families.

Two women who took part in RIVF launched a legal challenge last year after the Hong Kong government recognised only one of them as the mother of their son, citing existing family laws.

Also Read | Hong Kong’s top court rules to recognise same-sex partnerships

On Friday, judge Queeny Au-Yeung at the court of first instance ruled that the government’s non-recognition was a form of discrimination against the couple’s son.

Their child was “discriminated as to his birth in the sense that, unlike other children, he does not have a co-parent, genetically linked to him,” the judge wrote in her ruling.

The court declared that the woman initially denied legal status should be recognised as a “parent at common law”, saying the move would align her legal status with reality.

“The court should be astute to the changing world where people build families in different manners other than through a married or heterosexual relationship,” the judge added.

In RIVF, a lesbian couple can jointly take part in childbearing as one woman’s egg, fertilised externally with the aid of a sperm donor, is transferred to the other woman who carries the pregnancy to term.

The procedure was introduced in the late 2000s and can now be performed without restriction in more than a dozen European countries, according to an academic survey.

As Hong Kong does not recognise same-sex marriages, the two women in the case — who were granted anonymity by the court — were married and underwent RIVF in South Africa.

Lawyer Evelyn Tsao, who represented one of the women, called the ruling “one giant step for the rainbow families in our LGBTQ community”.

“For the first time, the court expressly states that children of same-sex couples are discriminated by the current legislation,” Ms. Tsao told AFP.

Barrister Azan Marwah, one of the lawyers who argued the case in court, said on social media that the ruling was a first in the common law world.

The Department of Justice told AFP it was “studying the judgment in detail and considering the way forward”.

Earlier this month, Hong Kong’s top court ruled against same-sex marriage but ordered the government to provide an “alternative framework”, such as civil unions, to protect the rights of homosexual couples.