First Trial Under Beijing-Imposed National Security Law Begins in Hong Kong

A 24-year-old Hong Kong man Wednesday became the first defendant to be tried under the city’s nearly one-year-old national security law. 

Tong Ying-kit was arrested after he drove his motorbike into a group of police officers on July 1 last year, the day after Beijing imposed the sweeping, draconian law on the semi-autonomous city.   The former restaurant cook was charged with terrorism and inciting secession for displaying a flag on his motorbike that read “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times,” a slogan popularized during the massive 2019 anti-government protests that prompted the new law.    Hong Kong’s justice secretary has ordered Tong to be tried by a panel of three specially picked judges instead of facing an impartial jury, a move critics say erodes the  independence of Hong Kong’s judiciary.