HONG KONG -- After a marathon four-day hearing, 47 pro-democracy figures in Hong Kong were kept in jail after being charged with subversion under Beijing's new sweeping national security law for the city. Their crime? Trying to win a majority in the city's legislature by organizing and participating in a primary poll, in what the prosecutors deem an attempt to "topple" the local government.
On March 4 -- the day when the security law-designated judge was expected to hand down bail decision, I used my commute to the West Kowloon Magistrates' Courts to sort the names of the defendants in line with their assigned numbers, from D1 to D47. I did not want to lose track in a jam-packed courtroom crowded with Hong Kong's best-known opposition politicians and activists, including scholars, lawyers, veteran lawmakers, social workers, and human rights advocates.
