Hong Kong Reaches a Grim Milestone: 1,000 Political Prisoners

There are now 1,014 political prisoners in Hong Kong. At the start of the mass protests on June 9, 2019, there were only a handful. This exponential increase has occurred in a little under three years.

Hong Kong has one of fastest growing populations of political prisoners in the world, rivaling Belarus, Burma and Cuba, other societies where authoritarian governments have recently cracked down on protest movements.

The large number of political prisoners is a key indicator of the deterioration of the rule of law, judicial independence, and protections of civil and political liberties, marking Hong Kong’s rapid descent into authoritarianism.

In few places in the world has the state of human rights deteriorated so rapidly as in Hong Kong over the past three years, with the rights to freedom of assembly, freedom of association, freedom of expression, and political participation all indefintely suspended, unreasonably restricted or abolished.