Opinion

With new security law, Hong Kong doubles down on repression

Since the arrests, only 13 have been granted bail under stringent conditions, leaving 34 others in prison as the trial, the largest under the 2020 law in Hong Kong to date, has dragged on. Prosecutors have often stretched credulity trying to prove that running in a primary and trying to win a majority of council seats amounted to a crime. Closing arguments began in November, and the three handpicked judges — there are no juries in national security crimes — have said they need at least three or four months to reach a verdict — but there are “no guarantees” they won’t take longer. The defendants face life in prison.

The only plausible, credible verdict is “innocent,” letting all 47 go free — even though 31 have already pleaded guilty in hopes of ending their long torment and perhaps getting a more lenient sentence. But in another sign of this weaponization of the legal system, even those who pleaded guilty were told they had to remain behind bars and await the trial of the defiant 16 who had pleaded not guilty before they would be sentenced. In the three years since the arrests, relatives have died and grandchildren have been born. Some have endured weeks in solitary confinement even for minor transgressions of prison rules.

The trial concluded just as the trial of Hong Kong’s best-known political prisoner, media entrepreneur and businessman Jimmy Lai, finally began — also after long delays. What the court has heard so far is that Mr. Lai exercised his right as founder and owner of the newspaper Apple Daily to make sure it pushed a pro-democracy agenda and — editorialized in favor of U.S. sanctions against Hong Kong officials involved in rolling back freedoms. This might seem like normal editorial decisions or the prerogatives of a media owner — but in Hong Kong, practicing independent journalism has been criminalized.

Last Wednesday also marked another sad milestone in Hong Kong’s downward trajectory: the end of a truncated 30-day public comment period for a new homegrown national security law proposal.

The security law imposed by Beijing in 2020 is draconian enough and has already stifled free expression in the territory and led to the disbanding of media outlets, trade unions and civil society groups. But local officials feel the need to double down with a local version that will expand the repression further, for example by creating new crimes for theft of “state secrets,” espionage, treason and “external interference.”

If the government listened to criticism during the shortened consultation period, it would have heard foreign diplomatic missions complain that the vague reference to “external interference” might criminalize normal diplomatic contacts. Academics are worried about their routine overseas exchanges. The Bar Association has said the law could have a “chilling effect” on lawful conduct. Business groups have criticized the law as ambiguous and said it might jeopardize the city’s status as a safe place to invest. Journalists are rightly worried that criminalizing disclosure of “state secrets” will be used to stifle routine reporting because a “state secret” might be anything the government has not formally released.

The Hong Kong government tried to pass this local security law in the past, but each time was forced to back down in the face of widespread protests. Now, under the cover of the national security law that has stifled virtually all public protest, it can hammer it through with no opposition.

The government has said the new law will only target a “small minority” of people out to undermine national security. That’s the same logic officials used to justify the earlier national security law. And now dozens of people languish in prison for no other crimes than exercising their right to speak freely and to demand a freer, more democratic system.

Hong Kong had been something special, an outpost of freedom on Chinese soil that could mediate between Beijing and the free world. China has crushed what had been one of its greatest assets.