logo
First batch of Hong Kong democrats freed after 4 years' jail for subversion

First batch of Hong Kong democrats freed after 4 years' jail for subversion

Reuters28-04-2025

HONG KONG, April 29 (Reuters) - The first batch of individuals jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion was freed on Tuesday after being behind bars for over four years.
Local media had reported that four former pro-democracy lawmakers, including Claudia Mo, Kwok Ka-ki, Jeremy Tam and Gary Fan would be freed on Tuesday from three separate prisons across Hong Kong.
A Reuters witness outside Stanley Prison, where Kwok and Tam were held, saw several vehicles leave just before dawn. A police officer told reporters they had left. Vehicles were also seen leaving the more remote Shek Pik Prison on Lantau Island.
Since large and sustained pro-democracy protests erupted in Hong Kong for most of 2019, China has cracked down on the democratic opposition as well as liberal civil society and media outlets under sweeping national security laws.
The 47 pro-democracy campaigners were arrested and charged in early 2021 with conspiracy to commit subversion under a Beijing-imposed national law which carried sentences of up to life in prison.
Forty-five of these were convicted following a marathon trial, with sentences of up to 10 years. Only two were acquitted.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Thousands attend candle-lit vigil for Austrian school shooting victims in Graz
Thousands attend candle-lit vigil for Austrian school shooting victims in Graz

Metro

timean hour ago

  • Metro

Thousands attend candle-lit vigil for Austrian school shooting victims in Graz

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Austrians held a candlelight vigil to mourn the country's deadliest mass shooting, which left eleven people dead. The country is reeling after yesterday, a former student of Borg Dreirschutzengasse Secondary School in Graz opened fire as students were taking exams. Eleven people have died so far from the shooting, with seven females and three males confirmed among the dead – the shooter killed himself in the bathroom. Yesterday evening, residents of Austria's second-largest city gathered in sombre silence to reflect. Thousands cried, prayed and stood watch over dozens of lit candles in the main town square. Attendee Felix Platzer told Reuters: 'When you hear about it, you have so much sympathy for the people, maybe you could have known someone. 'This is an example of solidarity, and you grieve together. Together it is easier to cope.' In a press conference after the shooting, Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker said the country would enter three days of mourning, with the flag flown at half mast. 'That such a safe space was hit by such a violent act leaves us speechless,' he said. ''Today is about empathy. It's about cohesion, that we are there together for each other in a difficult hour.' Mario Kunasek, governor of Styria, said: 'Styria is mourning today, the green heart is crying. This is an unimaginable tragedy that happened this morning. 'This is so unfathomable. The lives of so many have changed dramatically today.' The shooter has been named as a 21-year-old man from Graz. Initial investigations have found he owned the guns legally. The suspect has not yet been named. More Trending Investigators found a farewell letter at the home of the suspected gunman, Austrian newspaper Krone has reported. Police reportedly raided his property yesterday afternoon and found the note, the contents of which are unknown. The suspect was a former student at the school and didn't finish his education there. He killed himself after committing the mass shooting. Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: Three gunmen on the loose in Philadelphia after two shot dead in mass shooting MORE: At least 11 injured after gunman opens fire during boat party MORE: Eurovision winner JJ leads calls for Israel to be banned from song contest

Los Angeles, Donald Trump and the moronic inferno
Los Angeles, Donald Trump and the moronic inferno

New Statesman​

time2 hours ago

  • New Statesman​

Los Angeles, Donald Trump and the moronic inferno

Photo by David Swanson/Reuters Just as Vladimir Putin hungers to occupy Ukraine, it seems that Donald Trump hungers to occupy America. At time of writing, the president has ordered 4,000 members of the National Guard along with 700 US marines to California to put down protests there against the random arrest of (possibly) undocumented immigrants. Cars ablaze, charging phalanxes of soldiers, protesters' bloody faces: Trump's actions seem likely to provoke the demonstrators to levels of violence not seen since the Black Lives Matter riots of 2020. Perhaps that is the intention. The effect is ominous. Trump's overruling of a state governor to deploy these troops is the first such presidential action since Lyndon Johnson sent federal soldiers into Alabama in 1965, and that was to protect civil rights protesters, not attack them. It appears no precedent, or lack of one, can constrain America's leader. Trump simply has nothing to lose from whatever he does. Not from the violence he is unleashing in California, and certainly not from his obsessively covered and commented-upon falling out with Elon Musk, Trump's adviser and patron until recently. Musk, the world's wealthiest man, runs no real risk, either. Worth nearly $400bn dollars, Musk might, if Trump cancels his federal contracts, lose some mere billions. In fact he lost far more after the value of his companies sank thanks to his alliance with Trump. This hasn't stopped the American media from milking their row for all the page views it is worth. The brouhaha is wearying. More consequential, especially in the light of Trump's actions in LA, is a lesser-noticed split between Trump and another former ally: Miles Taylor, the former homeland security official from Trump's first administration. In an anonymous 2018 op-ed in the New York Times, then in a book published anonymously, he questioned Trump's fitness to hold office (Taylor revealed his identity in 2020). In April, Trump publicly suggested that Taylor had committed treason, a crime punishable by death. Trump has directed the Justice Department to investigate Taylor, who, with his family, has been in hiding since 2020. Now the family are trying to raise money for a legal defence. No American president has ever had an American investigated for committing treason for merely criticising the government, let alone publicly slandered them as a traitor. The New York Times glancingly mentioned Trump's accusation of espionage against Taylor in just one article, which covered several subjects of the president's vindictive rage. Yet at one point, the paper had no fewer than ten stories about the spat between Trump and Musk at the top of its homepage. The usually more sober, though Trump-whispering, Wall Street Journal had five up top. Meanwhile Gaza and Ukraine burn, China and Russia gloat, Europeans move so far away from America that it will take another Columbus to rediscover the place, and Trump's wanton slaughter of American institutions and values rolls forward. The world's most powerful man breaking with the world's richest man is newsworthy. But the idea – as pundits have said, again and again – that in the light of the rift American politics will change profoundly is absurd. Trump's persecution of one of his critics as a traitor is what will change American politics profoundly. Musk, who is unpopular, lacks the stature to stand the political order on its head. His threat to form a third party is as toothless as it is standard for an embittered rival to make. For all his wealth, he could not even get a Trump-supported judge elected in Wisconsin in April. And rather than the two men emerging as losers from their quarrel, they both come out smelling like roses. Trump was glad to have the chainsaw-wielding Musk serve as his fall-guy for the unpopular gutting of vital American agencies. Musk was happy to have the opportunity to move bureaucrats who were attempting to regulate his businesses out of the way. The limited and short-lived repercussions of Musk's antagonism with Trump are nothing compared to the ongoing consequences of their collaboration. As for the much-touted break between Maga and tech, Trump recently signed a mammoth contract with Palantir, the data analysis and technology company co-founded by Peter Thiel. This is not to say that the Trump-Musk rift does not offer an illumination. At its heart, it is an encounter between two present-day American archetypes: Musk, a digitally formed persona who seems lacking in emotional intelligence; and Trump, an old-fashioned analogue figure who makes up for what he lacks in knowledge and intellect with his preternatural ability to grasp people and what they fundamentally want. Consider his actions in Los Angeles: a level of policing brutality that plays up to the 'law and order' fever dreams of parts of the American public. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe After all, it is Trump's emotional canniness that has allowed him for decades to play the media like a farmed salmon. As the all-consuming uproar over his break with Musk showed, his strongest talent is to create smoke and mirrors in order to obscure the reality of his actions. His sweet spot is to rivet attention. The media's sweet spot is also to rivet attention. This is what lends such a fatal momentum to every spectacle Trump creates. The more the media conscientiously portrays Trump's cruelty in LA, the more his followers thrill to his power. It is Greek tragedy: every motion of American freedom now has the effect of turning freedom in America in on itself. [See also: Trump's nuclear test] Related

US slashes in half its request for Lockheed's F-35 fighter jets, Bloomberg News reports
US slashes in half its request for Lockheed's F-35 fighter jets, Bloomberg News reports

Reuters

time3 hours ago

  • Reuters

US slashes in half its request for Lockheed's F-35 fighter jets, Bloomberg News reports

June 11 (Reuters) - The Pentagon is scaling back in half its request to Congress for Lockheed Martin's (LMT.N), opens new tab F-35 jets, Bloomberg on News reported on Tuesday. A U.S. Defense Department procurement request document sent to Capitol Hill this week asked for 24 of the planes, down from 48 that was forecast last year, the report said. Reuters could not immediately verify the report. Lockheed Martin and the Department of Defense did not respond to requests for comment outside regular business hours.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store