Fourteen people have been found guilty in Hong Kong’s largest national security trial, the prosecution of the so-called “Hong Kong 47” pro-democracy campaigners.
Sixteen of the cohort had pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit subversion for organising pre-election primaries, and were among those detained in mass dawn raids by national security police in January 2021. Most have been in jail awaiting trial ever since.
Among the guilty are former lawmakers and activists including Helena Wong, veteran campaigner Leung “Long Hair” Kwok-hung, journalist Gwyneth Ho, and dual Hong Kong-Australian national Gordon Ng.
The charges of “conspiracy to subvert state power” were laid against them under the national security law which had been introduced seven months earlier.
I’ve been informed that we should tolerate Joe Biden’s creeping fascism over Donald Trump’s ultra-fascism, and that any attempt to criticise the entire system for giving us only an option between fascism lite and full-fat fascism is both-sidesing and will definitely usher in the ultra-fascism.
Any attempt to explain that I advocate strategically voting for fascism-lite whilst working to free ourselves from this dystopian fucking nightmare appears to mean that I secretly want ultra-fascism which doesn’t make sense to me but they’re very confident about it.