Hong Kong 47 Trial: Prosecution Shows Undercover Video

The trial of 47 pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong’s primary election case began on Feb. 6, and all were charged with “conspiracy to subvert state power” under the National Security Law for holding an unofficial primary election. In setting its case, the prosecution played a secretly filmed video of a primary election coordination meeting, causing gasps of dismay in court.

On Feb. 7, the second day of the primary trial, the prosecution alleged that defendant Benny Tai, a well-known scholar, and the District Council held several coordination meetings between February 2020 and July 2020 on their plan to hold a primary election to discuss the framework of the primary election with all the candidates, focusing on the common goal of winning a majority of seats in the Legislative Council (LegCo) and to gain agreement that those candidates who lost in the primary could not run in the LegCo election, to be held later in the year.

A video of a second coordination meeting in the New Territories West DC, was shown in the courtroom. Several defendants, including Tai, attended that meeting. The footage shown was shaky, poor quality, and shot mostly under the table, with occasional shots of Tai.

According to the prosecution, the videos reveal Tai saying that New Territories West and Super District were the last two constituencies without a “coordination mechanism.” and that the other four constituencies had reached a consensus on a “common political agenda,” including getting the government to meet the “five demands” developed during the 2019 anti-extradition protests,” and that candidates who lost in the primary election would not run in the legislative election.”

The video immediately led to a discussion among politicians about who the snapper was, and former Tuen Mun District Council member Michael Mo, who had applied to run for the LegCo in 2020, posted an article and photo on Twitter on Feb. 7, accusing Kim Chan as being the video taker. He revealed that he had attended a meeting of the New Territories West Co-ordinating Committee (held on April 23, 2020), which Chan also attended. Chan called himself a member of the “Project Storm” group. The meeting was reported by Wen Wei Po (a pro-CCP publication in Hong Kong) on the following day, which made Mo feel insecure, so he did not attend the subsequent meeting (held on May 8, 2020).

Project Storm was Tai’s planning group to gain control of District Councils in the April 2019 election. The reason for Project Storm and for planning to gain control of the LegCo was that the LegCo was controlled by the CCP and never gave a truly democratic election to the Hong Kong people, which was promised in the basic law.

Chan said he had changed his political stance from pro-CCP to pro-democracy because of the Umbrella Movement in 2014; he joined Project Storm, which was initiated by Tai in 2017, and intended to run in the 2019 District Council election. Woo described Chan as having been trained by Project Storm for two years but suddenly terminated his community work two months before the district election, which sounded an alarm.

In an interview with The Epoch Times on Feb. 8, former District Councillor Ben Lam revealed that he had also participated in Project Storm in 2018, the vast majority of those participants do not have a political party background, and some people called themselves “blue to yellow.” but he had forgotten whether he had met Chan. He recalled that the Umbrella Movement in 2014 made many Hong Kong people politically aware, and they joined different political organizations at the time Tai set up Project Storm in 2017, which attracted a large number of newcomers as volunteers.

The 47 Accused

The Hong Kong 47 pro-democracy activists have been accused of “conspiracy to subvert state power” under the National Security Law for organizing and participating in the pro-democracy primary election in 2020 in an attempt to choose the strongest democratic candidates for the LegCo election planned for later in 2020. There will be three levels of punishment starting at a few years, but the “ringleader(s)” could face life imprisonment.

Most of the 47 were denied bail and have been in jail for nearly two years while awaiting trial. The National Security Law, introduced on June 30, 2020, was imposed on Hong Kong by the Chinese communist regime.

The 47 defendants were first charged in February 2021 with subversion in a case centering on the holding of an unofficial primary vote. Thirty-four of them are detained, and 13 have been granted bail. The case was adjourned several times, and the trial finally began on Feb. 6, 2023, and is expected to last around 90 days.

The 47 people comprise 12 previously elected lawmakers, and 21 elected district officials, including Leung Kwok-hung (better known as Long Hair), Claudia Mo, and Lam Cheuk-ting. Others accused were prominent activists like Joshua Wong, academics, social workers, student leaders, a union leader, a lawyer, a journalist, and the well-known legal scholar Tai.

Benny Tai Yiu-ting

Tai, aged 57, is a legal scholar and a democratic and political activist who has been pushing for electoral reform and full universal suffrage in Hong Kong since the 1990s.

He was involved in organizing and participating in the unofficial primary elections on July 6, 2020, to decide which democratic candidates could participate in the 2020 Legislative Council Elections later in the year. But Beijing imposed the National Security Law on Hong Kong on June 30, 2020, and the election was deemed unlawful. The Legislative Council election was postponed for one year, citing COVID as the reason.

Tai was one of the 47 Democrats charged in January 2021 with subversion under the National Security Law for his involvement in the Primary Elections.