Lawyers say ruling is ‘highly significant’ and likely to impact future prosecutions amid intensifying national security crackdown

Hong Kong’s top court has quashed attempts by the city’s government to prosecute people for rioting or illegal assembly even without being present at the scene – a ruling lawyers described as a landmark.

The five-judge panel in Hong Kong’s court of final appeal, headed by chief justice Andrew Cheung, unanimously rejected an earlier ruling by a lower appeal court that people, such as supporters, could be criminally liable without being actually present under the common law doctrine of “joint enterprise”.

Tony Chung, the founder of a pro-independence group, was taken into custody in 2020 at a coffee shop close to the US consulate

A Hong Kong court has found the former leader of pro-independence group Studentlocalism guilty of secession and money laundering under the city’s sweeping national security law, after a plea bargain.

Tony Chung, 20, was charged with the offences in October last year and denied bail. Chung and two others were detained by unidentified men at a coffee shop near the US consulate early on 27 October. Chung’s supporters said at the time he had been intending to seek political asylum. They said Chung had submitted his paperwork weeks earlier, but fear of an imminent arrest prompted him to seek shelter at the consulate.

Hong Kong Alliance leaders face charges under national security law Beijing imposed last year

Hong Kong police have charged the group that organises the city’s annual Tiananmen candlelight vigil and three of its leaders with subversion under the national security law, amid an ongoing crackdown on dissent.

The Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China said that the group, its chairman, Lee Cheuk-yan, as well as vice-chairs Albert Ho and Chow Hang-tung were charged late on Thursday with “inciting subversion of state power”, under the national security law Beijing imposed more than a year ago.