Foreign News
Top Hong Kong pro-democracy leaders jailed for years
A Hong Kong court has sentenced key pro-democracy leaders to years in jail for subversion, following a controversial national security trial.
Benny Tai and Joshua Wong were among the so-called Hong Kong 47 group of activists and lawmakers involved in a plan to pick opposition candidates for local elections. Tai received 10 years while Wong received more than four years.
A total of 45 people were found guilty of conspiring to attempt subversion, after two people were acquitted.
Their trial marked the largest use of the harsh national security law (NSL) which China imposed on Hong Kong shortly after the city’s explosive pro-democracy protest in 2019.
Those demonstrations saw hundreds of thousands taking to the streets in Hong Kong for months. Triggered by a proposed government treaty that would have allowed extradition from Hong Kong to mainland China, the protests quickly grew to reflect wider demands for democratic reform.
Observers say the NSL and the trial’s outcome have significantly weakned the city’s pro-democracy movement and rule of law, and allowed China to cement control of the city.
The US has described the trial as “politically motivated”. Australia said it had “strong objections” to the use of the NSL and it was “gravely concerned” by the sentencing of one of its citizens, Gordon Ng.
Beijing and Hong Kong’s government argue that the law is necessary to maintain stability and deny it has weakened autonomy. They also say the convictions serve as a warning against forces trying to undermine China’s national security.
“No one can engage in illegal activities in the name of democracy and attempt to escape justice,” China’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday. It also said that it was “firmly opposed” to Western countries “discrediting and undermining the rule of law in Hong Kong.”
The case has attracted huge interest from Hongkongers, dozens of whom queued up outside of the court days before the sentencing to secure a spot in the public gallery.
Standing in line on Tuesday was Lee Yue-shun, one of the two acquitted defendants. He told reporters he wanted to urge Hongkongers to “raise questions” about the case, as “everyone has a chance to be affected” by its outcome.
Inside the courtroom, family members and friends waved from the public gallery to the defendants, who appeared calm as they sat in the dock. Some in the gallery were seen tearing up as the sentences, which ranged from four to ten years, were read out.
Tai, a former law professor who came up with the plan for the unofficial primary, received the longest sentence with judges saying he had “advocated for a revolution”.
Wong had his sentence reduced by a third after he pleaded guilty. But unlike some other defendants, he was not given further reductions as judges “did not consider him to be a person of good character”. At the time of the arrests, Wong was already in jail for participating in protests.
In court, Wong shouted “I love Hong Kong” before he left the dock.
Other prominent pro-democracy figures who were sentenced include Gwyneth Ho, a former journalist who went into politics, and former lawmakers Claudia Mo and Leung Kwok-hung. They received sentences between four and seven years in prison.
As Leung’s wife, activist Chan Po-ying, walked out of the court at the end of the hearing, she was heard chanting a protest against his jail term.
After the 2019 protests dwindled with the Covid pandemic, activists organised an unofficial primary for the Legislative Council election as a way to continue the pro-democracy movement.
Their aim was to increase the opposition’s chances of blocking the pro-Beijing government’s bills. More than half a million Hongkongers turned out to vote in the primary held in July 2020.
Organisers argued at the time that their actions were allowed under the Basic Law – a mini-constitution that allows certain freedoms. They had “never imagined that they would be in jail just for criticising the government”, former opposition lawmaker Ted Hui, who took part in the primary and later fled to Australia, told the BBC’s Newsday programme.
But it alarmed Beijing and Hong Kong officials, who warned that the move could breach the NSL, which came into effect days before the primary. They accused the activists of attempting to “overthrow” the government, and arrested them in early 2021.
At the end of the trial, the judges agreed with the prosecution’s argument that the plan would have created a constitutional crisis.
A Human Rights Watch spokesperson described Tuesday’s sentencing as showing “just how fast Hong Kong’s civil liberties and judicial independence have nosedived” since the enactment of the “draconian” NSL. They added that China and Hong Kong’s governments “have now significantly raised the costs for promoting democracy in Hong Kong”.
The pro-Beijing government may have used the trial to “settle scores” with the pro-democracy camp, said John P Burns, emeritus professor at the University of Hong Kong.
“Central authorities are also using the trial to re-educate the Hong Kong people,” Dr Burns said, with the lesson being “national security is the country’s top priority; don’t challenge us on national security’.”
“The case is significant because it provides clues to the health of Hong Kong’s legal system,” he told the BBC. “How can it be illegal to follow processes laid down in the Basic Law?”
Stephan Ortmann, assistant professor of politics at the Hong Kong Metropolitan University said the sentencing “set a precedent for the severity of punishments for political dissent under the NSL”.
The pro-democracy movement has now been “greatly weakened” where “self-censorship has become the norm”, he added.
Hong Kong activists say they have personally experienced the chilling effect.
Emily Lau, former chair of the Democratic Party of Hong Kong, said the fear of being arrested under the NSL is so great that “recently, we could not even organise a dinner party for members and friends. And that’s how stressful things are.”
“The fight will go on but in a peaceful and legal way,” Ms Lau told BBC Newsday.
“It doesn’t mean the Beijing government wins the hearts of the people,” said Sunny Cheung, an activist who ran in the 2020 primary but has since fled to the US.
“They might be happy in a way because the entire opposition is being wiped out… but at the same time, they lost the whole generation. They don’t have the trust of the people.”
[BBC]
Torrential rains have killed more than 100 people across Southern Africa, forcing mass evacuations and rescue operations as authorities warn that more destructive weather may still be to come.
Weeks of heavy rainfall have battered South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, overwhelming rivers and infrastructure and leaving entire communities cut off. Weather services across the region have issued further alerts, raising fears of additional flooding.
In South Africa, officials said on Friday that flooding in the northern provinces of Limpopo and Mpumalanga had killed at least 30 people.
Army helicopters have been deployed to rescue residents trapped on rooftops and in trees as swollen rivers swept through towns and villages. Security personnel were also evacuated from a border checkpoint with Zimbabwe after floodwaters surrounded the area.
President Cyril Ramaphosa toured affected parts of Limpopo on Thursday, saying the province had received about 400mm (16 inches) of rain in less than a week. In one district, he said, “there are 36 houses that have just been wiped away from the face of the earth.”
Limpopo Premier Phophi Ramathuba said more than 1,000 homes had been damaged across the province. “It’s so terrible,” she said.
In neighbouring Zimbabwe, the government’s disaster management agency reported at least 70 deaths since the start of the year, with more than 1,000 homes destroyed, and schools, roads and bridges collapsing under the force of the floods.
Mozambique has been the hardest hit. Its disaster management authorities said 103 people had died during an unusually severe rainy season since late last year. The figure includes deaths caused by flooding, lightning strikes, infrastructure collapse and a cholera outbreak linked to contaminated water supplies.
More than 200,000 people have been affected nationwide, with thousands of homes damaged and tens of thousands facing evacuation, according to the World Food Programme. The agency warned that flooding has submerged more than 70,000 hectares (173,000 acres) of crops, deepening food shortages for small-scale farmers in a country already struggling with poverty and repeated cyclones.
The United States Famine Early Warning System said flooding was reported or expected in at least seven Southern African countries, possibly linked to the La Nina phenomenon, which often brings heavier rainfall to the region.
South Africa’s Kruger National Park has also been hit, with about 600 tourists and staff evacuated from flood-affected camps. Park authorities said no deaths or injuries had been reported, but large areas remain inaccessible after rivers burst their banks.
Southern Africa has endured a series of extreme weather events in recent years, from deadly cyclones to severe droughts, exposing the region’s vulnerability to climate-driven disasters and fragile infrastructure.
Indonesia’s government has filed multiple lawsuits seeking more than $200m in damages against six firms, after deadly floods wreaked havoc across Sumatra, killing more than 1,000 people last year, although environmentalists criticised the moves as inadequate.
Environmentalists, experts and the government pointed the finger at deforestation for its role in last year’s disaster that washed torrents of mud and wooden logs into villages across the northwestern part of the island.
The government is seeking 4.8 trillion rupiah ($283.8m) from six companies accused of unspecified damage to an area spanning more than 2,500 hectares, the Ministry of Environment said on Thursday.
The sum represents both fines for damage and the proposed monetary value of recovery efforts.
The suits were filed to courts on Thursday in Jakarta and North Sumatra’s Medan, the ministry added.
“We firmly uphold the principle of polluter pays,” Environment Minister Hanif Faisol Nurofiq said in a statement.
He added that any corporation that “profits by damaging the ecosystem must be held fully responsible for restoring it”.
The Environment Ministry declined to offer more details when speaking with the AFP news agency on the alleged damage caused by the defendants, listed in the statement only by their initials.
The Indonesia Business Post reported that the ministry is also conducting environmental audits on more than 100 companies operating in the provinces of North Sumatra, West Sumatra and Aceh, quoting Nurofiq as saying that potential criminal suspects will be identified after the audits are completed.
Separately, a task force comprised of the military, police, Attorney General’s Office, and ministries has identified 12 companies suspected of contributing to flash floods and landslides in Sumatra, The Indonesia Business Post said.
Environmental groups say the government also holds some responsibility when granting companies the right to raze large tracts of land.
Greenpeace Indonesia’s forest campaigner Arie Rompas called the lawsuits a “minimalist” move, adding that authorities should comprehensively review policies responsible for the disaster.
“Besides the impact of the climate crisis, the flooding was also caused by land degradation, including deforestation, carried out by corporations,” Arie told AFP.
“Those companies were granted permits by the government.”
Mining, plantations, and fires have caused the clearance of large tracts of lush Indonesian rainforest over recent decades.
More than 240,000 hectares of primary forest were lost in 2024, according to analysis by conservation start-up The TreeMap’s Nusantara Atlas project.
Forestry Minister Raja Juli Antoni said last month that the government will revoke 22 forestry permits across the country, including permits that encompass more than 100,000 hectares in Sumatra.
Antoni did not specify whether the decision was linked to the disaster, though he earlier said that the floods provide an opportunity to “evaluate our policies”.
The “pendulum between the economy and ecology seems to have swung too far towards the economy and needs to be pulled back to the centre,” Antoni said at the time.
[Aljazeera]
India has shut down a medical college in Indian-administered Kashmir in an apparent capitulation to protests by right-wing Hindu groups over the admission of an overwhelming number of Muslim students into the prestigious course.
The National Medical Commission (NMC), a federal regulatory authority for medical education and practices, on January 6 revoked the recognition of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Medical Institute (SMVDMI), located in Reasi, a mountainous district overlooking the Pir Panjal range in the Himalayas, which separates the plains of Jammu from the Kashmir valley.
Of the 50 pupils who joined the five-year bachelor’s in medicine (MBBS) programme in November, 42 were Muslims, most of them residents of Kashmir, while seven were Hindus and one was a Sikh. It was the first MBBS batch that the private college, founded by a Hindu religious charity and partly funded by the government, had launched.
Admissions to medical colleges across India, whether public or private, follow a centralised entrance examination, called the National Entrance Examination Test (NEET), conducted by the federal Ministry of Education’s National Testing Agency (NTA).
More than two million Indian students appear for NEET every year, hoping to secure one of approximately 120,000 MBBS seats. Aspirants usually prefer public colleges, where fees are lower but cutoffs for admission are high. Those who fail to meet the cutoff but meet a minimum NTA threshold join a private college.
Like Saniya Jan*, an 18-year-old resident of Kashmir’s Baramulla district, who recalls being overwhelmed with euphoria when she passed the NEET, making her eligible to study medicine. “It was a dream come true – to be a doctor,” Saniya told Al Jazeera.
When she joined a counselling session that determines which college a NEET qualifier joins, she chose SMVDMI since it was about 316km (196 miles) from her home – relatively close for students in Kashmir, who often otherwise have to travel much farther to go to college.
Saniya’s thrilled parents drove to Reasi to drop her off at the college when the academic session started in November. “My daughter has been a topper since childhood. I have three daughters, and she is the brightest. She really worked hard to get a medical seat,” Saniya’s father, Gazanfar Ahmad*, told Al Jazeera.
But things did not go as planned.
As soon as local Hindu groups found out about the religious composition of the college’s inaugural batch in November, they launched demonstrations demanding that the admission of Muslim students be scrapped. They argued that since the college was chiefly funded from the offerings of devotees at Mata Vaishno Devi Temple, a prominent Hindu shrine in Kashmir, Muslim students had “no business being there”.
The agitations continued for weeks, with demonstrators amassing every day outside the iron gates of the college and raising slogans.
Meanwhile, legislators belonging to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – which has been accused of pursuing anti-Muslim policies since coming to power in 2014 – even wrote petitions to Kashmir’s lieutenant governor, urging him to reserve admissions in SMVDMI only for Hindu students. The lieutenant governor is the federally appointed administrator of the disputed region.
In the days that followed, their demands escalated to seeking the closure of the college itself.
As the protests intensified, the National Medical Commission on January 6 announced that it had rescinded the college’s authorisation because it had failed to “meet the minimum standard requirements” specified by the government for medical education. The NMC claimed the college suffered from critical deficiencies in its teaching faculty, bed occupancy, patient flow in outpatient departments, libraries and operating theatres. The next day, a “letter of permission”, which authorised the college to function and run courses, was withdrawn.
But most students Al Jazeera talked to said they did not see any shortcomings in the college and that it was well-equipped to run the medical course. “I don’t think the college lacked resources,” Jahan*, a student who only gave her second name, said. “We have seen other colleges. Some of them only have one cadaver per batch, while this college has four of them. Every student got an opportunity to dissect that cadaver individually.”
Rafiq, a student who only gave his second name, said that he had cousins in sought-after government medical colleges in Srinagar, the biggest city in Indian-administered Kashmir. “Even they don’t have the kind of facilities that we had here,” he said.
Saniya’s father, Ahmad, also told Al Jazeera that when he dropped her off at the college, “everything seemed normal”.
“The college was good. The faculty was supportive. It looked like no one cared about religion inside the campus,” he said.
Zafar Choudhary, a political analyst based in Jammu, questioned how the medical regulatory body had sanctioned the college’s authorisation if there was an infrastructural deficit. “Logic dictates that their infrastructure would have only improved since the classes started. So we don’t know how these deficiencies arose all of a sudden,” he told Al Jazeera.
Choudhary said the demand of the Hindu groups was “absurd” given that selections into medical colleges in India are based on religion-neutral terms. “There is a system in place that determines it. A student is supposed to give preference, and a lot of parameters are factored in before the admission lists are announced. When students are asked for their choices, they give multiple selections rather than one. So how is it their fault?” he asked.
Al Jazeera reached out to SMVDMI’s executive head, Yashpal Sharma, via telephone for comments. He did not respond to calls or text messages. The college has issued no public statement since the revocation of its authorisation to offer medical courses.
Meanwhile, students at SMVDMI have packed their belongings and returned home.
Salim Manzoor*, another student, pointed out that Indian-administered Kashmir, a Muslim-majority region, also had a medical college where Hindu candidates are enrolled under a quota reserved for them and other communities that represent a minority in the region.
The BJP insists it never claimed that Muslim students were unwelcome at SMVDMI, but encouraged people to recognise the “legitimate sentiments” that millions of Hindu devotees felt towards the temple trust that founded it. “This college is named after Mata Vaishno Devi, and there are millions of devotees whose religious emotions are strongly attached to this shrine,” BJP’s spokesman in Kashmir, Altaf Thakur, told Al Jazeera. “The college recognition was withdrawn because NMC found several shortcomings. There’s no question of the issue being about Hindus and Muslims.”
Last week, Omar Abdullah, chief minister of Indian-administered Kashmir, announced that SMVDMI students would not be made to “suffer due to NMC’s decision” and they would be offered admissions in other colleges in the region. “These children cleared the National Entrance Examination Test, and it is our legal responsibility to adjust them. We will have supernumerary seats, so their education is not affected. It is not difficult for us to adjust all 50 students, and we will do it,” he said.
Abdullah condemned the BJP and its allied Hindu groups for their campaign against Muslims joining the college. “People generally fight for having a medical college in their midst. But here, the fight was put up to have the medical college shut. You have played with the future of the medical students of [Kashmir]. If ruining the future of students brings you happiness, then celebrate it.”
Tanvir Sadiq, a regional legislator belonging to Abdullah’s National Conference party, said that the university that the medical college is part of received more than $13m in government aid since 2017 – making all Kashmiris, and not donors to the Mata Vaishno Devi shrine – stakeholders. “This means that anyone who is lawfully domiciled in [Indian-administered Kashmir] can go and study there. In a few decades, the college would have churned out thousands of fresh medical graduates. If a lot of them are Muslims today, tomorrow they would have been Hindus as well,” he told Al Jazeera.
Nasir Khuehami, who heads the Jammu and Kashmir Students’ Association, told Al Jazeera the Hindu versus Muslim narrative threatened to “communalise” the region’s education sector. “The narrative that because the college is run by one particular community, only students from that community alone will study there, is dangerous,” he said.
He pointed out that Muslim-run universities, not just in Kashmir but across India, that were recognised as minority institutions did not “have an official policy of excluding Hindus”.
Back at her home in Baramulla, Saniya is worried about her future. “I appeared for a competitive exam, which is one of the hardest in India, and was able to get a seat at a medical college,” she told Al Jazeera.
“Now everything seems to have crashed. I came back home waiting for what decision the government will take for our future. All this happened because of our identity. They turned our merit into religion’
[Aljazeera]
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