Four former Hong Kong opposition lawmakers jailed in the territory’s largest national security case were released yesterday after more than four years in prison, the first among dozens convicted last year to regain their freedom.
Former legislators Claudia Mo (毛孟靜), Jeremy Tam (譚文豪), Kwok Ka-ki (郭家麒) and Gary Fan (范國威) were part of a group of 47 public figures — including some of Hong Kong’s best-known democracy advocates — who were charged with subversion in 2021 for holding an informal primary election.
The case fell under a National Security Law imposed on the territory by Beijng, and drew international condemnation and warnings about Hong Kong’s declining freedoms and tolerance of dissent.
Photo: AFP
Mo, Tam, Kwok and Fan had been kept in custody since 2021 and were each sentenced to four years and two months behind bars after they pleaded guilty.
All four were taken out of prison just before sunrise yesterday in cars with curtains drawn.
Speaking outside his home, Mo’s husband, Philip Bowring, said the former lawmaker was resting and not in a position to speak to the media.
“She’s well and she’s in good spirits... We look forward to being together again,” Bowring said at his apartment, with a “Welcome home mum” banner visible in the dining room.
“We’ll be here for a while and getting used to living in Hong Kong again, and then probably we’ll go to England at some point to see our grandchildren,” he said.
Fan told local media that he was on his way to reunite with his family and thanked Hong Kongers for their concern.
Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law on Hong Kong on June 30, 2020, following huge and sometimes violent pro-democracy protests.
Authorities said an informal primary election held by the former lawmakers which aimed to win a legislative majority, with the ultimate goal of indiscriminately vetoing the government’s budget, amounted to a conspiracy to subvert state power.
The landmark case involved figures across Hong Kong’s once-diverse political spectrum — including elected lawmakers, district councilors, unionists and academics with views ranging from moderate to radical.
The prison sentences, delivered in November last year, were condemned by Western governments and rights groups.
Mo previously worked as a journalist and cited her experience covering Beijing’s bloody 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown as pivotal in her political awakening.
She helped found the now-shuttered Civic Party in 2006 and won a legislative seat in 2012, but later quit the party to campaign on a platform emphasizing Hong Kong’s distinctive identity from China.
Kwok, 63, and Tam, 49, were also former Civic Party lawmakers. Before entering politics, Kwok worked as a doctor and Tam as an airline pilot.
Fan, 58, was a cofounder of Neo Democrats, a party that advocated for electoral reform, and pushed back against China’s political and cultural influence on Hong Kong in the 2010s.
Each of the four defendants had their prison terms trimmed due to their guilty pleas, with an additional six-month reduction on account of “past public service and ignorance of the law.”
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