Dozens of Hong Kong democracy advocates charged with subversion yesterday returned to court to complete a marathon bail hearing that was adjourned overnight when four defendants were rushed to hospital after hours of legal wrangling.
Police on Sunday arrested 47 of the territory’s best-known dissidents for “conspiracy to commit subversion” in the broadest use yet of a sweeping National Security Law that Beijing imposed on the territory last year.
The defendants represent a broad cross-section of Hong Kong’s opposition, from veteran former pro-democracy lawmakers to academics, lawyers, social workers and youth advocates.
Photo: Reuters
Hundreds of supporters gathered outside a courthouse on Monday for the first post-charge bail hearing, chanting democracy slogans — a rare resurgence of defiance in a territory where protest has been all but outlawed over the past year.
Normally such a bail hearing might take little more than a couple of hours.
However, the court struggled to deal with the sheer caseload as well as the legal vagaries of the broadly worded security law, which removes the presumption of bail for non-violent crimes.
The court sat on and off for about 15 hours throughout Monday as the prosecution called for the advocates to be held in custody until the next hearing in three months’ time while the defense tried to pursue bail.
An adjournment only came in the early hours of yesterday morning after one of the defendants, Clarisse Yeung (楊雪盈), collapsed and was rushed to hospital.
Three other defendants were subsequently taken to hospital in ambulances. At the time of the adjournment, less than half of the bail hearings for the 47 defendants had been heard, a reporter in court said.
The defendants were then taken in handcuffs to a nearby detention center for a few hours’ sleep before returning to court yesterday morning.
Yeung said on Facebook that she fainted after receiving no food for 12 hours and was being treated in hospital for low blood pressure.
The three others who fell ill were also not in court.
Beijing is struggling to quash dissent in semi-autonomous Hong Kong after huge pro-democracy demonstrations in 2019.
The security law has been the spearhead of that crackdown, criminalizing any act considered to be subversion, secession, terrorism or collusion with foreign forces.
It has radically transformed Hong Kong’s relationship with the authoritarian mainland and outlawed dissent in the once free-wheeling territory.
One major area of change is bail.
Under the new law, defendants may only be granted bail if they can persuade a court they no longer pose any kind of national security risk.
Before Monday’s hearing, all those charged with a national security crime had been held on remand, despite agreeing to restrictive measures such as house arrest and making no public statements.
The alleged offense for the 47 facing subversion charges was organizing an unofficial primary election last summer to choose candidates for the territory’s legislature, in the hopes that the pro-democracy bloc might take a majority and stymie government legislation.
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
ESPIONAGE: The British government’s decision on the proposed embassy hinges on the security of underground data cables, a former diplomat has said A US intervention over China’s proposed new embassy in London has thrown a potential resolution “up in the air,” campaigners have said, amid concerns over the site’s proximity to a sensitive hub of critical communication cables. The furor over a new “super-embassy” on the edge of London’s financial district was reignited last week when the White House said it was “deeply concerned” over potential Chinese access to “the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies.” The Dutch parliament has also raised concerns about Beijing’s ideal location of Royal Mint Court, on the edge of the City of London, which has so
OVERHAUL: The move would likely mark the end to Voice of America, which was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda and operated in nearly 50 languages The parent agency of Voice of America (VOA) on Friday said it had issued termination notices to more than 639 more staff, completing an 85 percent decrease in personnel since March and effectively spelling the end of a broadcasting network founded to counter Nazi propaganda. US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) senior advisor Kari Lake said the staff reduction meant 1,400 positions had been eliminated as part of US President Donald Trump’s agenda to cut staffing at the agency to a statutory minimum. “Reduction in Force Termination Notices were sent to 639 employees at USAGM and Voice of America, part of a
RSS