"No one can engage in unlawful activities in the name of democracy and then try to escape the sanction of the law," foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told a regular briefing.
Beijing "firmly supports (Hong Kong) law enforcement and judicial authorities in carrying out their duties and responsibilities in accordance with the law, and in punishing all kinds of acts that endanger national security," she added.
Thursday's case is the biggest against pro-democracy campaigners since China imposed a national security law to crush dissent.
The verdicts cap a long-running trial in which 47 people were charged for organising an unofficial election in 2020, activities the court ruled were a threat to the government.
Fourteen people were found guilty on Thursday. They, along with 31 others who pleaded guilty, could face life in jail.
Two were found not guilty.
Britain, Australia and the European Union quickly condemned the verdicts with language that echoed the frequent criticism from Western governments in recent years over China's crackdown on democracy in the former British colony.
Beijing responded Thursday that it "resolutely oppose(s) any interference in China's internal affairs by individual countries... and any attempts to discredit and undermine the rule of law in Hong Kong."
China tells critics of Hong Kong security law to 'stop interfering'
Hong Kong (AFP) May 30, 2024 -
China on Thursday told international critics of Hong Kong's security law to "stop interfering" following condemnation of the arrests of seven people for posting "seditious" online messages.
The seven were arrested Tuesday and Wednesday for "offences in connection with seditious intention" in relation to social media posts commemorating Beijing's 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.
They were the first people to be arrested under the "Safeguarding National Security Ordinance" -- enacted by Hong Kong in March and commonly referred to as Article 23 -- which penalises sedition with up to seven years in prison.
The European Union had said the arrests suggest that the new legislation "is used to stifle freedom of expression".
On Thursday, China's foreign ministry in Hong Kong hit out at international critics.
"We advise individual countries and politicians to face reality squarely, uphold an objective and impartial stance... and stop interfering in Hong Kong's affairs and China's internal affairs immediately," said a ministry spokesperson in the city.
Hong Kong's security chief said that one of those arrested was Chow Hang-tung, a prominent activist who led the now-disbanded group that once organised annual vigils to mark the Tiananmen Square crackdown.
Chow is already serving a more than 30-month jail sentence over other charges, including "unauthorised assembly" for her attempt to publicly commemorate June 4.
On Thursday, police confirmed that five people had received bail.
- EU, US criticism -
The Chinese foreign ministry office said Chow "continuously published posts with seditious intent on social media, trying to provoke hatred of the public towards the central government and the Hong Kong government".
The spokesperson charged unnamed "external forces" with "making all sorts of efforts to complain for and support anti-China and anti-Hong Kong elements".
"Their despicable attempts are disgraceful," they said in a statement.
A European Union spokesperson on Wednesday said the arrests "seem to confirm the EU's concerns about the new law and its effect on the rights and freedoms of the people of Hong Kong".
On Thursday, the United States condemned the arrests "under Hong Kong's repressive new national security law".
"We reiterate our concern that the law's overly broad and vaguely defined provisions appear to further criminalise the exercise of freedom of expression and silence criticism of the government," a US State Department spokesperson said.
Passed by an opposition-free legislature, Article 23 became Hong Kong's second national security law, following a Beijing-imposed security law that came into effect in 2020.
The United States, the European Union, Japan and Britain have been among Article 23's strongest critics.
China's statement on foreign interference was not connected to the national security trial in which 14 Hong Kong democracy campaigners were found guilty of subversion on Thursday.
Benny Tai: from Hong Kong's elite scholar to 'state subverter'
Hong Kong (AFP) May 30, 2024 -
Once the Hong Kong government's go-to constitutional law expert, Benny Tai is now regarded by authorities as the "mastermind" who had conspired to commit subversion in the city's largest security case.
He received a medal of honour in 2001 for civic education around the Basic Law, Hong Kong's mini-constitution which has governed the former British colony since it was handed back to China.
More than 20 years later, prosecutors denounced the 59-year-old as the "mastermind and instigator" behind the actions that led to Hong Kong's largest national security case, which reached a verdict on Thursday.
Fourteen out of 16 who insisted they were innocent were found guilty, while Tai -- along with 30 others -- had already pleaded guilty two years earlier.
But he still featured prominently throughout the 300-plus-page judgement issued Thursday, which detailed Tai's plan to "acquire a 'constitutional weapon of mass destruction' in destabilising the existing political system".
"(Tai's) aim and purpose was to use the Scheme to undermine, destroy or overthrow the existing political system and structure of Hong Kong," it said, referring to him as "D1" -- the first of 47 defendants.
He -- along with the others convicted -- will be sentenced later this year for subversion under Hong Kong's national security law imposed by Beijing in 2020.
It was enacted after millions took to Hong Kong's streets at the height of massive and at times violent pro-democracy protests in 2019 to call for more autonomy from Beijing.
Authorities quashed the protests, but Tai developed a strategy to unite Hong Kong's disparate pro-democracy groups into a coalition to seek a legislative majority.
They would then veto government budgets, force it to accede to demands raised by protesters in 2019 and ultimately push for the city's leader to step down, prosecutors said.
Tai had argued the move fell within the Basic Law, which enshrines the city's unfulfilled right to universal suffrage.
He pleaded guilty at pre-trial hearings in June 2022.
Days later, the government stripped him of the medal of honour.
- Shift to activism -
Born in 1964, Tai studied law at the flagship University of Hong Kong at a time when the UK and China were entering the final phase of negotiations on the city's handover.
His thesis examined Beijing's "One Country, Two Systems" political framework that allowed Hong Kong to preserve its capitalism, a common law system and certain civil liberties.
After graduating, Tai assisted Martin Lee, founder of Hong Kong's Democratic Party, to draft the Basic Law, before leaving for postgraduate studies in London.
For more than two decades after his return, he was a celebrated law professor and a well-respected scholar sitting on the government's civic education committee.
But as Tai pursued his idea for a universal suffrage sit-in, he shifted more towards public activism.
He spearheaded the Occupy Central movement in 2014, where hundreds of thousands of Hong Kongers staged a 79-day sit-in around the city's Central business district, calling for universal suffrage.
They faced 87 rounds of tear gas and authorities rejected their demands.
"I shall never give up and I will definitely continue to pursue democracy for Hong Kong," Tai told the court after being convicted on incitement and public nuisance charges in 2019.
- A symbol -
Soon after his release on bail in August 2019, as pro-democracy protesters were besieged by police at a local university, candidates avowing their cause recorded a landslide win in District Council elections.
Tai, a self-described "bridge-maker" among the democratic movements, saw an opportunity to secure a legislative majority.
"Elections... cannot change the undemocratic nature of the political system," he wrote in his book "Love and Peace: The Unfinished Journey of Resistance".
But "they can slow down Hong Kong's fall into full-fledged authoritarian rule".
Activist Raphael Wong said Tai wanted "to absorb, coordinate and integrate various opinions from the vast political spectrum of the democratic camp".
Today, many activists have either been arrested or left the city.
But within the withered pro-democracy camp, Tai is a symbol of "Hong Kong's sufferings", said Ho Chi-kwan, a prominent feminist leader who now lives in Taiwan.
"The twists and turns in his life are an epitome of the fate of Hong Kong," she told AFP.
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