Landmark trial of Hong Kong 47 gets under way amid tight security
Al JazeeraThe group of pro-democracy politicians and activists are accused of subversion for organising an unofficial primary. “There’s certainly huge sympathy for the people who are standing trial,” said Al Jazeera’s Richard Kimber, reporting from Hong Kong. “There’s certainly a lot of frustration that it’s taken this long to get to this stage and that those who’ve been detained have not been able to speak out since they were arrested.” Those charged include prominent activists Leung Kwok-hung, known as “Long Hair”, and Gordon Ng Ching-hang, who faces potential life imprisonment as one of five people accused of being a “major organiser” of the primary. Prosecutors have described the primary — held so the democrats could put forward their strongest candidates for the Hong Kong Legislative Council election — as a “vicious plot” to subvert the government and wreak “mutual destruction” on it by taking control of the city’s legislature. A year after it was imposed, rights group Amnesty International said it had “decimated” freedoms in Hong Kong and put the territory on the road to becoming a police state.