Hong Kong will resolutely uphold rule of law: China Daily editorial

In the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region's first conviction under the National Security Law in effect in the region, a panel of three judges in the High Court found the suspect guilty of terrorism and incitement to secession. That a threatening phone call was made to the High Court within hours of the conviction, targeting the judges, is another telltale sign of the subversive forces' frustration, anger and desperation in the face of the powerful security law.

This was the second time in the same number of months that intimidation was attempted to pervert the course of justice. In early June, a judge who sentenced media tycoon Jimmy Lai Chee-ying and his cohorts for organizing and participating in an illegal assembly during the anti-government campaign in 2019 also received threats. Threatening the personal safety of judges, for merely exercising their judicial duties in accordance with the applicable law and evidence, shows how far the radical elements in Hong Kong are willing to go to undermine the rule of law in the SAR.

Although anti-China Western politicians and their propaganda platforms have wasted no time in attacking the verdict, such a blatant demonstration of contempt for the rule of law has revealed the subversive forces' claims to be championing their rights is nothing but camouflage for their obsessive pursuit of their political agenda, in which turning the SAR into a de facto independent political entity is the ultimate objective. They no longer bother to make any pretense of respecting the rule of law — the cornerstone of democracy, civil rights and individual freedom in any society. In a nutshell, the subversives have discarded even the fig leaf they were using to claim the "moral high ground".

The attempts to intimidate judges duty-bound to uphold the law reveal the desperation and frustration among the ranks of the subversives in the wake of the promulgation of the National Security Law for Hong Kong.

The law has effectively put an end to the months-long campaign of lawlessness initiated by the subversive forces in the SAR in 2019, which employed wanton violence and terrorist tactics in an attempt to force Beijing and the SAR government to accept their unconstitutional and unrealistic political demands.

The security law has totally shattered the illusions of Hong Kong independence they have harbored, plugging the legal lacuna in safeguarding national security in the SAR. That the subversives have turned their abhorrence for the law into hatred against the judges who handed down the first conviction under the law can also be understood in the context that the conviction has set a precedent case for future offenses, boosting the security law's deterrence effect by presenting the certainty, severity and celerity of punishment for offenses of this nature.