HONG KONG — Hong Kong’s High Court on Tuesday jailed 45 pro-democracy activists for up to 10 years following a landmark national security trial that has damaged the city’s once feisty democracy movement and drawn criticism from the U.S. and other countries.

A total of 47 pro-democracy activists were arrested and charged in 2021 with conspiracy to commit subversion under a Beijing-imposed national security law which carried sentences of up to life in prison.

Benny Tai, a former legal scholar identified in the judgement as a “mastermind” of the activists’ plans, was sentenced to 10 years in jail, the longest sentence so far under the 2020 national security law.

The charges related to the organizing of an unofficial “primary election” in 2020 to select the best candidates for an upcoming legislative election. The activists were accused by prosecutors of plotting to paralyze the government by engaging in potentially disruptive acts had they been elected.

Some Western governments have criticized the trial, with the US describing it as “politically motivated”  and saying the democrats should be released as they had been legally and peacefully participating in political activities.

The Chinese and Hong Kong governments say the national security laws were necessary to restore order after mass pro-democracy protests in 2019, and the democrats have been treated in accordance with local laws.

CLOSELY WATCHED TRIAL
After a 118-day trial, 14 of the democrats were found guilty in May, including Australian citizen Gordon Ng and activists Owen Chow and Gwyneth Ho, while two were acquitted.

The other 31 pleaded guilty and all 45 were given sentences ranging from 4-10 years.

“Our true crime for Beijing is that we were not content with playing along in manipulated elections,” Ms. Ho, who was sentenced to seven years imprisonment, wrote in a Facebook post.

“We dared to confront the regime with the question: will democracy ever be possible within such a structure? The answer was a complete crackdown on all fronts of society.”

Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong said she was “gravely concerned” about the sentences, and called on China to “cease suppression of freedoms of expression, assembly, media and civil society,” in Hong Kong.

Mr. Chow was sentenced to seven years and nine months in jail, while prominent activist Joshua Wong was sentenced to four years and eight months in jail, and Hendrick Lui was sentenced to more than four years in jail.

Afterwards, Mr. Lui’s mother Elsa Wu shouted: “He’s a good person … he’s not a political prisoner … why does he have to go to jail?”

It was not immediately clear whether the defendants — some of whom have already been detained for more than 3-1/2 years — would have this time deducted from their sentences.

CROWDED COURTROOMS
The judges Andrew Chan, Alex Lee and Johnny Chan wrote that in passing sentence they considered factors including the degree of planning, the number of people involved, the potential harms generated, in a “holistic assessment” irrespective of whether the scheme would have taken place or not.

“In order to succeed, the organizers and participants might have hurdles to overcome, that however was expected in every subversion case where efforts were made to overthrow or paralyze a government. We therefore rejected the proposition that the scheme was doomed to fail and that a lighter sentence should be imposed,” the judges wrote.

Hundreds of people had queued from the early hours outside the court, many holding umbrellas in light rain as they tried to secure a seat within the main courtroom and several spillover courts.

Authorities deployed a tight police presence outside the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Court and for several blocks in the vicinity with police dogs, an armoured truck and vehicles with lights flashing. Some people were searched and questioned.

“I feel such an injustice needs witnessing,” said one woman who gave her name as Margaret and had been in the queue since Sunday afternoon. “They (the democrats) need to know they still have public support.”

The ruling, which critics have said tarnishes Hong Kong’s role as a global financial hub, comes as the city is hosting an international financial summit to attract more business.

US President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee as secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has been a staunch critic of the trial and in an earlier open letter criticized the convictions as evidence of the national security law’s “comprehensive assault on Hong Kong’s autonomy, rule of law, and fundamental freedoms.”

Speaking outside the court building, Roxie Houge, the head of the US consulate in Hong Kong’s political section, said the US government condemned “the continuous prosecution of individuals here in Hong Kong who are expressing their political views… exercising their freedom of speech.” — Reuters

KYIV — Ukraine marked 1,000 days on Tuesday since Russia’s full-scale invasion, with weary troops battling on numerous fronts, Kyiv besieged by frequent drone and missile strikes, and officials preparing for Donald J. Trump to reclaim the White House in January.

In a boost for the beleaguered country, US President Joseph R. Biden gave the green light for US missiles to be used against targets deeper inside Russia, potentially limiting its options to launch attacks and supply the front.

But the dramatic shift in policy may be reversed when Mr. Trump returns to the White House in January, and military experts cautioned that it would not be enough on its own to change the course of the 33-month-old war.

Thousands of Ukrainian citizens have died, over 6 million live as refugees abroad and the population has fallen by a quarter since Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion by land, sea and air that began Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II.

Military losses have been catastrophic, although they remain closely guarded secrets. Public Western estimates based on intelligence reports vary widely, but most say hundreds of thousands have been killed or wounded on each side.

Tragedy has touched families in every corner of Ukraine, where military funerals are commonplace in major cities and far-flung villages, and people are exhausted by sleepless nights of air raid sirens and anguish.

Now the return of Trump, who has vowed to end the fighting quickly — without saying how — calls into question the future of US military aid and the united Western front against Putin, and raises the prospect of talks to end the war.

PROSPECT OF TALKS
With Ukraine entering uncharted territory, a sense of escalation has been palpable as Moscow and Kyiv push to improve their battlefield positions ahead of any negotiations.

Already boosted by Iranian attack drones and North Korean artillery shells and ballistic missiles, Russia has now deployed 11,000 North Korean troops, some of whom Kyiv says have clashed with Ukrainian forces who have seized a part of Russia’s Kursk region.

One senior Kyiv official said Pyongyang had the capacity to send 100,000 soldiers.

Ukraine, meanwhile, has some of its best troops trying to hold that small piece of Russian territory, captured in August as a bargaining chip.

Kyiv says Russia has massed 50,000 troops there, while the Kremlin’s forces have also been making their quickest gains in the east of Ukraine since 2022 — and stepping up pressure in the northeast and southeast too.

With winter setting in, Moscow on Sunday renewed its aerial assault on Ukraine’s struggling power system, firing 120 missiles and 90 drones in the biggest aerial barrage since August.

In addition to the US authorization to strike military targets inside Russia with American-supplied weapons, external financial and arms aid also remain vital.

Despite two consecutive years of moderate growth, the Ukrainian economy is still only 78% of the size it was before the invasion, which saw GDP contract by a third in 2022. Ukraine’s once-giant steel and grain industries have been hammered.

RUSSIA DEMANDS UKRAINE GIVE UP TERRITORY AND NATO AMBITION
The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission has verified the deaths of 11,743 Ukrainian civilians, though some Kyiv officials believe the number is much higher.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said last week that Ukraine must do its best to end the war next year through diplomatic means. But he has emphatically shut down any talk of a ceasefire before proper security guarantees are provided to Ukraine.

The Kremlin has said its war objectives remain unchanged since Mr. Putin said in June that Ukraine must drop its ambitions to join NATO, and must retreat from four Ukrainian regions that his forces partially control, all tantamount to capitulation for Kyiv.

A sea of small Ukrainian flags honoring the dead now occupies a corner of Kyiv’s Independence Square, once the beating heart of the mass pro-European protests that toppled Ukraine’s then Moscow-backed president in 2014.

Russia responded to the protests by seizing Ukraine’s Black Sea peninsula, Crimea, and backing a paramilitary insurgency in the east that killed 14,000 people before two series of talks, in the so-called Minsk format, halted the fighting with Kyiv.

After German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called Mr. Putin on Friday for the first time in nearly two years, Mr. Zelensky said the move reduced the Russian leader’s isolation. He also spoke out against the idea of renewed Minsk-style talks.

“We want to warn everyone: there will be no ‘Minsk 3’; what we need is real peace,” he said. — Reuters