Hong Kong appeals court upholds jailed democracy campaigners' sentences

The 12 appellants were among 45 opposition figures, including some of the Chinese city's best-known activists, who were sentenced to prison in 2024 for organising an unofficial primary election that authorities deemed a subversive plot.

The 2020 poll had hoped to improve the chances of pro-democracy lawmakers winning a majority in the legislature so that they could then threaten to veto the city budget unless the government accepted demands like universal suffrage.

The appeals from the 12, including ex-lawmaker "Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung and former journalist Gwyneth Ho, were heard last year, and on Monday High Court Chief Judge Jeremy Poon dismissed them.

The cases stem from the aftermath of huge, sometimes violent pro-democracy protests that convulsed Hong Kong from 2019.

In June 2020, Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law that snuffed out most dissent in the semi-autonomous city.

A record number of voters turned out for the primary the following month to select pro-democracy candidates for a legislative election later that year. The election was later postponed.

Months later, authorities rounded up the opposition figures in a mass arrest that drew international condemnation and deepened fears that the security law had eroded freedoms.

Aged between 28 and 69, the group included democratically elected lawmakers and district councillors, as well as unionists, academics and others ranging from modest reformists to radical localists.

At their trial, judges said their plan to scupper the budget would have caused a "constitutional crisis".

In 2024, the court convicted 45 people and acquitted two.

During the appeal hearing last year, defence lawyer Erik Shum said that lawmakers should be allowed to veto the budget as a form of "check and balance", as stated in Hong Kong's mini-constitution.

"In order to check the unpopular exercise of powers by the executive, one of the important measures is to tie the purse," he told the court.

Shum said lawmakers should not be answerable to the courts over how they vote because of the separation of powers.

The 45 convicted campaigners were given sentences ranging from four years and two months to 10 years, depending on their role and whether they received reduced penalties.

Some of the appellants have already spent nearly five years behind bars.

As of last month, 18 other defendants who did not contest their convictions have been released after completing their sentences.

Prosecutors had challenged the acquittal of one of the two people found not guilty, lawyer Lawrence Lau.

On Monday the court upheld the acquittal.