Lee Cheuk-yan, the General Secretary of the HKCTU and eight other known opponents have been charged. They can be sentenced to up to five years in prison. The “crime” they are accused of is that in August 2019 they called for a demonstration in which about a quarter of the population participated.
Two other trade unionists have been in pre-trial detention since 28 February:
– Carol Ng, chair of HKCTU,
– Winnie Yu, president of the HAEA public hospital union.
They are part of a “float” of 47 prominent opponents charged with “conspiracy to commit an act of subversion”. The sentences can go up to life imprisonment.
All this for having organised “primaries” within the opposition in view of the legislative elections initially scheduled for 6 September 2020.
The government finally postponed these legislative elections at the last moment. It feared losing the elections, as was the case for the local elections in November 2019, where the opposition won 86% of the seats.
The prosecutions are part of a massive witch-hunt that includes more than 2,300 indictments.
At the same time, freedom of expression and demonstration is being challenged.
The right to express oneself in the ballot box is also being challenged: on 30 March, the Chinese government announced that the percentage of Hong Kong parliamentarians elected by universal suffrage would be reduced from 57% to 22%. Most of the other seats will in fact be reserved for government supporters.
The Union Syndicale Solidaires expresses its full solidarity with the victims of the repression.
It demands that the prosecution be stopped and that those imprisoned be released.
Paris, 2 April 2021