Hong Kong Watch Briefing on Human Rights Developments: May 2026

This briefing describes developments in Hong Kong in May 2026 focusing on the rapid deterioration of human rights in the city following the imposition of the National Security Law and the passage of Safeguarding National Security Ordinance.

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Executive Summary

May 2026 brought landmark convictions and sustained pressure on independent media and civil society in Hong Kong in the run-up to the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

In the most significant legal development of the month, a London jury convicted two men for assisting China with spying in the first such convictions in British criminal history, establishing judicially that the London Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office served as a base for transnational repression on British soil. A Hong Kong Watch survey found two-thirds of Hong Kongers in the UK feel at risk of such repression, while a wanted Hong Kong activist faced deportation from Thailand to mainland China, illustrating the reach of Hong Kong’s national security apparatus into a third country.

The Alliance subversion trial concluded its closing arguments, with a verdict expected in mid-to-late July for Chow Hang-tung and Lee Cheuk-yan, who face up to ten years’ imprisonment for the Alliance’s slogans and commemorations. Joshua Wong’s second national security case was transferred to the High Court, where he faces up to life imprisonment, while a construction worker and a 67-year-old man received sentences for election-related sedition, continuing a pattern of prosecutions against ordinary residents for political expression.

Press freedom came under renewed strain. Veteran journalist and former press-union chair Ronson Chan was jailed on appeal, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club found two-thirds of its members reported a worsening working environment, the journalists’ union was hit with a HK$730,000 prepaid-tax demand, and Hong Kong officials publicly attacked Reporters Without Borders over its ranking of the city 140th of 180 globally. The government injected a further HK$5 billion into its confidential national security fund, bringing the total to HK$18 billion with no public accounting.

Photo: Mx. Granger, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons