Changes to Hong Kong’s implementation rules for the national security law will improve operational efficiency amid heightened geopolitical risks, experts have said. A legal expert and a former security minister said the amendments aimed to clearly lay out investigation procedures for searches under existing national security law powers, while an academic argued the move was…
A Hong Kong barrister turned activist on trial for allegedly inciting subversion has accused Beijing of undermining the nation’s constitutional order by entrenching one-party rule, describing the move as a regression. Chow Hang-tung told West Kowloon Court on Monday that mainland China took a step backwards in 2018 by amending the constitution to enshrine the…
A former Hong Kong lawmaker on trial for allegedly inciting subversion has denied abetting criminal activity by supporting mainland Chinese dissidents, accusing Beijing of levelling false charges against them. Prosecutors on Wednesday challenged Lee Cheuk-yan’s claim that he had no intention to incite others to overthrow the mainland’s communist rule when he called for an…
A former Hong Kong opposition politician has accused China’s one-party rule system of being incompatible with the country’s constitution and failing to safeguard people’s fundamental rights, as he defended his calls to end “dictatorship” in a high-profile subversion trial. Ex-lawmaker Lee Cheuk-yan, former chairman of the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic…
Two former leaders of a now-disbanded alliance behind Hong Kong’s annual Tiananmen Square vigil have a case to answer in a high-profile trial after judges ruled the evidence supported prosecutors’ allegations that the activists incited others to overthrow the Communist Party leadership. Three High Court judges on Friday found that the evidence appeared to suggest…
A disbanded alliance behind Hong Kong’s Tiananmen Square vigil had only intended to promote democracy and greater political freedom when it advocated the abolition of the mainland’s one-party rule, a defence lawyer has said in a high-profile national security trial. He said the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China did…
Hong Kong prosecutors have argued that the national security trial of a now-disbanded alliance behind the Tiananmen Square vigil is neither politically motivated nor intended to punish dissidents, stressing that they will not ask the court to determine the merits of any campaign or criticism against Beijing. In his opening speech on Monday at West…
A former vice-chairman of the group behind Hong Kong’s annual Tiananmen Square vigil is facing up to 10 years in jail after he admitted advocating an end to Communist Party rule in mainland China in breach of the national security law. Former opposition lawmaker Albert Ho Chun-yan, 74, on Thursday pleaded guilty to inciting subversion…
Hong Kong’s rule of law is “more robust and enduring than the outcome of any single case”, the city’s chief justice has declared after former media boss Jimmy Lai Chee-ying was found guilty in a landmark national security case that drew international scrutiny and criticism. Chief Justice Andrew Cheung Kui-nung on Monday also warned that…
A jailed activist has lost a judicial review against a Hong Kong Correctional Services Department rule that prohibits female inmates from wearing shorts in summer, with the court ruling that the women’s standard prison uniform was carefully designed and did not constitute discrimination. High Court judge Russell Coleman said on Tuesday that there was “little…