Hong Kong: 2 pro-democracy activists plead guilty

Protests in Hong Kong (AP Photo / Vincent Yu)

• Hong Kong.

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August 19, 2021 Two pro-democracy activists from Hong Kong, 31-year-old

, and legal assistant

, 30, pleaded guilty to "colluding with foreign forces to jeopardize national security", to having asked foreign countries to impose sanctions on Hong Kong and China after the introduction of the national security law in the city. The Agi reports it.

The two were accused of collaborating with pro-democracy media tycoon

- already arrested and awaiting trial for violating the national security law in Hong Kong - between July 2020, when the controversial legislation went into effect, and February of this year. Li and Chan appeared before Hong Kong High Court Judge Alex Lee today, and were placed in pre-trial detention. The hearing was adjourned to next January 3.

Collusion with foreign forces is one of the crimes punished by

, imposed by Beijing in Hong Kong to shut down the city's pro-democracy movements. Andy Li is one of 12 activists arrested at sea in August 2020 while trying to flee Taiwan after Beijing's law enforcement, and has already served seven months in prison in China for illegal border crossing. After pleading guilty to collusion with foreign forces, prosecutors withdrew charges related to his attempted escape by speedboat along with 11 other activists.   

So far, about 130 people have been arrested in Hong Kong for violating the national security law, which punishes the crimes of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces: only one of them has so far been convicted under the new law, the 24-year-old Tong Ying-kit, who hit three police officers with his motorcycle in July last year, from which a pro-democracy banner was flying. Tong was tried last month and sentenced to nine years in prison for secession and terrorism.