Short excerpts from article:

“Of the 47, 31 had pleaded guilty, and two were acquitted at trial. Most have spent more than three years in jail already. Those who pleaded not guilty were given harsher sentences.”

“The activists had been arrested in 2021 under the city’s national security law (NSL) for their participation in an unofficial primary election that was held in July 2020, weeks after the NSL had been imposed by Beijing in response to months of pro-democracy protests. More than 600,000 people participated in the unofficial vote.”

“The trial was overseen by three government-picked judges without a jury – one of the many provisions of the NSL that critics have described as punitive and antithetical to the rule of law in Hong Kong.”

#world