Hong Kong Watch Briefing on Human Rights Developments: June 2026

This briefing describes developments in Hong Kong in June 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

June 2026 saw Hong Kong’s Chief Executive gain sweeping new powers over national-security prosecutions, even as a UK court delivered historic sentences against two men assisting Hong Kong intelligence operations on British soil.

In the most significant legal development, the Hong Kong government gazetted a regulation empowering the Chief Executive to certify any criminal case as involving national security, a certificate binding on the courts and beyond challenge, passed without public consultation. In London, two men linked to the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office received the first custodial sentences under the UK’s National Security Act 2023, with the judge finding their surveillance of dissidents “deliberate, concerted, and serious.”

Hong Kong’s courts continued reopening protest-era cases, convicting a former law student at retrial nearly seven years after her arrest and pursuing an appeal against a Democratic Party ex-lawmaker’s acquittal, while a construction worker was jailed for leaflets thrown from his flat window. Around the Tiananmen Square massacre anniversary, police detained commemorators in Causeway Bay. The Hong Kong police also raided an independent bookshop for selling “seditious” titles.

Civil society continued shrinking as the University of Hong Kong’s 74-year-old student magazine folded and the government opened consultation on Hong Kong’s inaugural Five-Year Plan. Transnational repression persisted abroad, with Five Eyes agencies warning of Chinese intelligence recruitment schemes and a released Hong Kong 47 activist detained for 20 hours by Japanese authorities.

香港監察香港人權狀況簡報：2026年6月

香港人權狀況在《國家安全法》實施及《維護國家安全條例》（俗稱「23條」）通過後急速惡化，這份簡報記錄了2026年6月香港的事態發展。

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摘要

2026年6月，香港行政長官取得國家安全檢控方面的廣泛新權力，英國法庭則就兩名男子在英國境內協助香港情報行動頒布具歷史意義的判刑。

本月最重要的法律進展是，香港政府刊憲訂立「23條」附屬法例，授權特首發出具法律約束力且不容挑戰的證明書，認定某刑事案件涉及國家安全，規例在未經公眾諮詢的情況下通過。英國方面，倫敦中央刑事法院根據2023年《國家安全法》首次判處兩名與香港經濟貿易辦事處有關係的男子監禁，法官形容兩人監視異見人士的行為「蓄意、經協商且嚴重」。

香港法庭繼續重啟2019年抗爭運動時代的案件：距離被捕近七年，前法律系女生灣仔暴動案重審後被裁定罪成；前民主黨立法會議員林卓廷早前被裁定「妨礙司法公正」罪名不成立，律政司不服上訴。另外，一名裝修工人因從住所拋出寫有「煽動」字句紙張而被判入獄。「六四」週年期間，香港警方在銅鑼灣帶走悼念者。警方亦以涉嫌出售「具煽動意圖」刊物為由，封鎖搜查獨立書店「獵人書店」。

香港公民社會空間持續收窄：有74年歷史的香港大學學生會刊物《學苑》宣布停運；港府就香港首份「五年規劃」展開諮詢。海外跨國鎮壓持續肆虐：五眼聯盟警告，中國間諜利用網上求職平台招募線人；「47人案」獲釋被告岑子杰在入境日本時被當局扣查20小時。

Photo: BBC Creative on Unsplash