✊ Faces of the Crackdown|鎮壓面孔

Portraits of six Hong Kong pro-democracy figures jailed or exiled under the National Security Law Six of the many. Top, l–r: Benny Tai, Joshua Wong, Chow Hang-tung; bottom: Lee Cheuk-yan, Nathan Law, Agnes Chow. Sources via Wikimedia Commons — Tai, Wong, Chow Hang-tung and Lee: Voice of America (public domain); Nathan Law: Jindřich Nosek (NoJin), CC BY-SA 4.0; Agnes Chow: Honcques Laus (CC0). Composite: CC BY-SA 4.0.

Behind Hong Kong's national-security statistics are people. By mid-2026, more than 410 people had been arrested on national-security grounds since the law took effect in June 2020, over 210 charged and 180-plus convicted or awaiting sentence — the publishers, students, unionists, lawmakers, journalists and clergy who made up the city's civil society. Some are serving long prison terms; others fled into exile with bounties on their heads; a few were tried and cleared. This page gathers them — a human index to the crackdown documented across this archive, linking the individuals and cases we have profiled in depth.

The press

The clearest target was Hong Kong's free media (see Book Censorship under the NSL for the printed word).

Jimmy Lai (黎智英) — founder of Apple Daily; sentenced to 20 years for foreign collusion and sedition, the harshest NSL term to date. Six Apple Daily executives were jailed for 6 years 9 months to 10 years.
Chung Pui-kuen (鍾沛權) & Patrick Lam (林紹桐) — editors of Stand News, convicted in the first sedition case against a Hong Kong media outlet since the handover; Chung was jailed for 21 months.

The Hong Kong 47

The largest NSL case — 45 democrats jailed for organising a 2020 opposition primary. Full account and the sentence table on the The Hong Kong 47 page. Among them:

Benny Tai (戴耀廷) — legal scholar and "mastermind" of the plan: 10 years, the longest.
Joshua Wong (黃之鋒) — face of the 2014 Umbrella Movement: 4 years 8 months, and in 2026 he pleaded guilty to a second collusion charge carrying up to life.
Gwyneth Ho (何桂藍, journalist, 7 years), Owen Chow (鄒家成, 7 years 9 months), Gordon Ng (吳政亨, 7 years 3 months), Leung Kwok-hung "Long Hair" (梁國雄, 6 years 9 months), Winnie Yu (余慧明, unionist, 6 years 9 months) and dozens more.

The Tiananmen vigil and the Alliance

The leaders who kept the Tiananmen Vigil alive for thirty years, convicted in 2026 of inciting subversion (see Hong Kong Alliance):

Chow Hang-tung (鄒幸彤) — barrister and vigil convenor: 7 years 3 months.
Lee Cheuk-yan (李卓人) — Alliance chair and veteran unionist: 7 years.
Albert Ho (何俊仁) — founding member and former lawmaker: 5 years 2 months.

Faith

Cardinal Joseph Zen (陳日君) — the 90-something retired Catholic bishop of Hong Kong and a trustee of the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, arrested in 2022 under the NSL and convicted of failing to register the fund; fined but not jailed — a signal that not even the Church was beyond reach.

Driven abroad

Others escaped Hong Kong before they could be jailed — only to be declared fugitives, stripped of passports, and in many cases made the subject of HK$1 million police bounties:

Nathan Law (羅冠聰, UK), Agnes Chow (周庭, Canada) — Joshua Wong's Demosistō co-founders.
Ted Hui (許智峯, Australia), Dennis Kwok (郭榮鏗), Kevin Yam (任建峰), Anna Kwok (郭鳳儀), Finn Lau (劉祖廸), Simon Cheng (鄭文傑), Frances Hui (許穎婷) and others named on successive wanted lists — pursued for lobbying, advocacy, or organising abroad.

Help complete this record

This is a living index, and it is far from complete — hundreds more remain unnamed here. If you can help profile someone, correct a detail, or contribute photographs and testimony, please see Participation. Preserving these names is part of preserving what was done to them.

Sources

香港中文報道 (Chinese-language HK coverage): 法庭線 The Witness 的中文法庭報道詳載上述多宗案件 — 支聯會案 · 47人案判刑專頁 · 黃之鋒案。多家香港中文獨立媒體本身亦是本檔案保存的對象，包括法庭線、獨立媒體與光傳媒。

Children

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