Forty-five Hong Kong democracy activists have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms in a landmark national security trial. The Chinese territory's courts have convicted them of "subversion" for their role in organizing an unofficial legislative primary in 2020. The development has some in Taiwan worried that they would face a similar fate if China were to take over.
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00:00It's another massive blow for Hong Kong's democracy movement.
00:03Two years after their arrest, 45 of the Chinese territory's top democracy activists have
00:08now been given lengthy prison sentences.
00:10Their crime?
00:11Organizing a legislative primary race in 2020.
00:14It was nothing official, but the high turnout spooked both local officials and Beijing.
00:19They've been accused of trying to overthrow the government and were formally convicted
00:22of subversion.
00:24Among their number are well-known protest leaders.
00:27But the harshest sentence of 10 years has gone to the man accused of being the ringleader,
00:31legal scholar Benny Tai.
00:33Ever since mass protests in 2019 and the passage of a controversial national security law,
00:38the vice has been tightening on dissidents.
00:41Even before the sentencing, the girlfriend of defendant Ventus Lau knew what was coming.
00:57Outside observers also say it's a critical time for the movement, and that even moderates
01:07may be in danger.
01:09Hong Kong's democratic movement essentially has been put to a stop.
01:16It doesn't mean that people in Hong Kong are not still aspiring for democracy.
01:23It doesn't mean that there are no people in Hong Kong who would still fight for democracy.
01:29But as an organized movement, it has effectively been put to a stop.
01:36As the city's freedoms promised under the agreement that saw Britain return Hong Kong
01:39to China disappear, observers in Taiwan, like lawmaker Puma Shen, are growing alarmed.
01:45China claims Taiwan and regularly threatens the use of force.
01:49Shen is now among several prominent names on China's blacklist of alleged die-hard Taiwan
01:53independence supporters.
02:05As the openness and exuberance that once characterized Hong Kong fade, the question these observers
02:10across the strait are asking is what Taiwan can learn to avoid the same kind of fate.
02:15Ryan Woo and John Ventriest for Taiwan Plus.
02:19For more UN videos visit www.un.org