BANGKOK – Hong Kong authorities on Tuesday freed four former lawmakers who each spent more than four years in prison for their part in staging an unofficial primary election in 2020, local media reported.
Claudia Mo, Jeremy Tam, Kwok Ka-ki and Gary Fan were among 47 activists arrested for the election activities. Only two of the 47 were acquitted after a grueling 118-day trial that ended in November 2024 with prison sentences of four to 10 years.
Vehicles carrying the freed activists left three prisons early on Tuesday amid tight security, The Associated Press reported.
Reporters outside Mo’s home were told by husband Philip Bowring that she was resting and didn’t want to speak to them, according to the AFP news agency.
“She’s well and she’s in good spirits,” he said. “We look forward to being together again.”
Mo, Tam, Kwok and Fan – who received the shortest sentences of the 47 – had their prison time reduced after pleading guilty.
The group organized the 2020 primary to find the best pro-democracy candidates for Hong Kong’s September 2020 Legislative Council election at a time when Beijing was aggressively eroding the territory’s autonomy. More than 600,000 people cast their votes in the preliminary poll.
Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s governor at the time, postponed the 2020 election, citing health concerns due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The government then rewrote the electoral rulebook to prevent pro-democracy candidates from running, eventually holding a fresh election in December 2021 in which only “patriots” approved by a Beijing-backed committee were allowed to stand.
On Jan. 6, 2021, the newly formed national security police arrested 55 people. They brought formal charges against 47 of them, then denied bail to the majority.
The 47 pro-democracy activists were charged with subversion under the city’s 2020 National Security Law, a charge which carries a maximum life sentence.
The prosecution argued that their bid to win a majority was “a conspiracy” to undermine the city’s government and take control of the Legislative Council.
The long-running case sparked international outrage, with protests from the U.S., U.K. and Australian governments, and the United Nations. Hong Kong’s last British colonial governor, Lord Patten of Barnes, called the case “an affront to the people of Hong Kong.”
Edited by Taejun Kang and Stephen Wright.
