Is Hong Kong’s national security law being weaponised? Questions being asked as first case out of 61 goes before courts
- Much remains unclear about bail, whether jury trials will be allowed, and how judges will sentence those convicted
- Legal experts are watching every step of first cases to understand how new security law will work
This is the third of a four-part series on the impact of the national security law, one year after it was imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing on June 30, 2020. Chris Lau and Laura Westbrook speak to legal scholars on the new precedents being set on bail, trials, sentences to be meted out, and whether the law is being weaponised against political opponents. Read part one here and part two here.
For the past three months, the wife of former Democratic Party lawmaker Andrew Wan Siu-kin has visited him in detention every day.
Apart from the daily visits, Agnes and their children, a 12-year-old boy and 16-year-old girl, eagerly await the letters Wan sends from Lai Chi Kok Reception Centre, where he is being held. But some of the news is difficult to hear, as he described his uneven bed and the overwhelming heat in his cell during a recent heatwave.
“The hardest thing for me is to see how helpless he is,” said Agnes, who has been married to the 52-year-old Wan for almost 20 years. The stocky social worker weighing over 90kg had lost more than 13kg since going into detention in April, she said.
When asked how the family would cope if he were to be put away for a long time, Agnes said: “We don’t dare think about it.”