Editorial: The city has been under growing pressure since the \u2018umbrella movement\u2019 convulsed it four years ago<\/b>
\nN ine pro-democracy campaigners are on trial in Hong Kong over their role in the \u201cumbrella movement\u201d, four years after the unprecedented protests gripped the city. They are pleading not guilty and hope to use the hearings to turn a spotlight on the issues behind their case: what is also on trial, says the defendant Benny Tai, a legal scholar, is the high degree of autonomy and the rule of law that Hong Kong is supposed to enjoy.
Unusually, prosecutors have based the charges on a common law offence which renders them more ambiguous than similar charges under statutory law and ensures that they carry far harsher sentences, of up to seven years. The defendants are accused of inciting public nuisance; Mr Tai and the two fellow founders of the Occupy Central campaign are also accused of conspiracy to cause public nuisance and, absurdly, inciting others to incite public nuisance. Amnesty International describes the charges as deliberately vague and designed to chill.
The trio\u2019s initial call for a campaign of peaceful civil disobedience was soon overtaken by a student-led movement which was almost comically polite and well-behaved. The 79-day protests galvanised the city and crystallised many people\u2019s frustrations with the growing encroachments upon its freedoms and way of life, guaranteed until 2047 under the joint declaration on the former British colony\u2019s return to China. But it failed in its immediate political goal, of making the promise of universal suffrage in elections for the chief executive meaningful, and accelerated the clampdown. The last four years have seen the kidnapping and detention of Hong Kong booksellers, and the disqualification of pro-democracy legislators for amending their oaths of office, resulting in the pro-democracy camp losing its veto power.
Last year, student leaders were jailed for their role in the protests \u2013 after prosecutors appealed against what they called the \u201crather dangerous\u201d leniency of their original sentences \u2013 thereby barring them from elections for five years. The best-known of them, Joshua Wong, had already warned that the promise of \u201cone country, two systems\u201d had become in reality \u201cone country, one-and-a-half systems\u201d.
Since then, Hong Kong has banned a pro-independence party as a \u201creal threat to national security\u201d and introduced a law criminalising disrespect of the national anthem. There has been growing pressure on and interference in academia, the judiciary and the media: last month, the government refused to review the work visa of a resident Financial Times journalist after he chaired a talk by a pro-independence advocate. Independent bookshops have closed.
As MPs have pointed out \u2013 to the displeasure of Hong Kong\u2019s leadership, which complains of \u201chighly undesirable\u201d interference \u2013 the deterioration in the city\u2019s autonomy is an issue for the British government, as the other party to the joint declaration. Despite Beijing\u2019s open disdain for this document, this is a legally binding treaty lodged with the UN. The Foreign Office says individual trials are a matter for Hong Kong, but hopes the proceedings will not discourage lawful protest. The growing pressure on Hong Kong\u2019s freedoms is a test for Britain too.<\/p>\n