The SAR government won a major victory in the “Hong Kong National Security Law” lawsuit.
At present, there are two major lawsuits in the “Hong Kong National Security Law”, one is the “35+ primary election case”, and the other is the Li Zhiying case. Forty-seven defendants in the “35+ primary election case” participated in the opposition “primary election” in mid-July 2020 and were suspected of conspiring to subvert state power. Sentencing by the Court of First Instance. The remaining 18 defendants have pleaded not guilty and are awaiting trial in court.
Twenty-nine pleaded guilty. The case is nearly 150 pages long. From the case presented by the prosecution and the confessions of some defendants, several key points can be seen:
1. The main players are Dai Yaoting and Au Nuoxuan. The facts of the case allege that in December 2019, Tai Yaoting conspired with Au Nuoxuan to publish a number of articles in “Apple Daily”, “Standard News” and other media to lobby and promote the “35+ primary election”.
In April of the following year, Tai Yaoting set up a roadmap of “Ten Steps to Realize Speculation”. The goal is to plunge Hong Kong society into a major crisis, bring bloody repression, prompt Western countries to impose political and economic sanctions on China and Hong Kong, and clearly intend to overthrow the normal operation of the Legislative Council by obstructing the normal operation of the legislature. government, subversion of state power. Tai Yiu-ting advocated that the key to “scalping speculation” is to control the majority of the Legislative Council, that is, more than 35 seats, and then indiscriminately veto the budget, forcing the Chief Executive to dissolve the Legislative Council and then resign.
2. Make the last bet even knowing that you have violated the law. On June 30, 2020, the “Hong Kong National Security Law” came into effect. The Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs, Tsang Kwok-wai, publicly warned that the opposition’s continued primary elections may violate the “Hong Kong National Security Law”.
However, Tai Yiu-ting still insisted on holding the primary election on July 11 and 12, 2020. In the end, more than 600,000 people went to the polling stations in various districts in Hong Kong to vote. Dai Yaoting and others obviously want to make the last blog.
3. Why do you have to plead guilty now? Although most of those who plead guilty will plead guilty because of remorse (remorse is the main reason for requesting the court to commute the sentence), but generally speaking, there are two main considerations for pleading guilty: A. The lawsuit is not punishable; B. The guilty plea is for a commutation of the sentence.
Since pleading guilty saves court time, about one-third of the sentence will be reduced, and then the vacation time in prison will be deducted. If you take less than half of the original sentence, you can regain freedom. This is the biggest incentive.
Fourth, the core initiators pleaded guilty, and the other participants were difficult to fight. Among the twenty-nine people who pleaded guilty, including the main actor Dai Yaoting, prominent figure Huang Zhifeng, former Democratic Party chairman Hu Zhiwei, etc., the most crucial person in charge, Dai Yaoting, pleaded guilty, not a follower. Dai Yaoting admitted that this activity was an action to subvert state power, and although the level of participation of other participants varied, their lawsuit was obviously more difficult to fight.
After the “Hong Kong National Security Law” came into effect, Tang Yingjie hit a police officer with a motorcycle in Causeway Bay the next day. As a result, in July last year, he was convicted of one count of inciting secession and one count of terrorist activities and sentenced to nine years in prison. It became the first serious case after the “Hong Kong National Security Law”.
However, due to the wide scope of the cases involved, the two major cases of the “Hong Kong National Security Law” are the Li Zhiying case and the “35+ primary election case”.
You recalled that when the two cases occurred, there were comments that the National Security Department of the police made arbitrary arrests, but now it seems that some defendants in both cases have pleaded guilty, and the government is famous.
In the Lai zhiying case, two people involved in the case, Li Yuxuan, a member of “Hong Kong Story”, and Chen Zihua, a legal assistant, fled Hong Kong for a while, were arrested in the mainland, and then returned to Hong Kong. Li Yuxuan and Chen Zihua pleaded guilty in August last year, admitting to conspiring with Li Zhiying and others to request foreign sanctions against Hong Kong through the “Songguang Team” (SWHK) as a platform, admitting to violating the “Hong Kong National Security Law” and “conspiring to collude with foreign countries or foreign forces to endanger national security” guilty,” awaiting sentencing. Some people in the case pleaded guilty and confessed the facts of the case, which was quite unfavorable for the other defendants in the case.
Today, Dai Yaoting, the core leader of the “35+ primary election case”, has pleaded guilty, which has a far-reaching impact on the case. Now that 62 percent of the defendants in the case have pleaded guilty, the government has won a big victory. The “Hong Kong National Security Law” is indeed a sharp sword.
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Lu Yongxiong