charged with “conspiracy to commit subversion” under the NSL in relation to their involvement in unofficial political party primaries for the 2020 Legislative Council elections that were ultimately postponed. Most were detained for over two years before the start of the trial, and some faced up to life imprisonment if found guilty.7 The repeatedly delayed trial on national security and sedition charges of Jimmy Lai, publisher and founder of the now closed prodemocracy newspaper Apple Daily, began in December, one year after it was originally scheduled. He has been detained since August 2020. In March, five UN human rights experts wrote to the Chinese government to express their grave concern about the arrest, detention and multiple prosecutions of Jimmy Lai in apparent connection with his criticism of the Chinese government and support for democracy in Hong Kong. In March, national security police arrested two men for “sedition” for possessing banned children’s books whose authors and publishers were convicted of sedition in 2022.8 Both were released on bail but could face up to two years in prison. Prosecutions of members of pro-democracy and human rights groups continued even though most such groups had ceased to operate after the introduction of the NSL in 2020. On 4 March, three members of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China (Hong Kong Alliance) – Chow Hang-tung, Tang Ngokkwan and Tsui Hon-kwong – were found guilty of failure to comply with a 2021 police request under the NSL to provide information about the group’s membership, funding and activities. Chow Hang-tung, former vice-chair of the Hong Kong Alliance, refused to comply with bail conditions that restricted her right to freedom of expression and therefore remained in detention pending the outcome of her appeal. She was subjected to solitary confinement on multiple occasions, amounting to a total of 82 days. On 1 March, the Hong Kong authorities lifted Covid-19 pandemic-related regulations 132 on public gatherings. However, the right to protest remained highly restricted and an atmosphere of intimidation prevailed. In March, the Hong Kong Women Workers’ Association called off a march to mark International Women’s Day, apparently due to police concerns that “violent groups” would be present and threats that participants may be arrested. In June, the Hong Kong government sought a court order to ban the popular prodemocracy protest song “Glory to Hong Kong”, and threatened to prosecute anyone who performed, broadcast or published it under the NSL or sedition laws. On 4 and 5 June, police detained at least 32 people near Victoria Park, where the annual candlelight vigil to commemorate the Tiananmen crackdown was held until it was banned in 2020. The police claimed that those detained were “displaying protest items loaded with seditious wordings, chanting and committing unlawful acts”. All were subsequently released without charge. In June, 10 former staff members and others linked to the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund (set up to assist participants in the 2019 pro-democracy protests with legal and other costs but disbanded in 2021) were arrested on suspicion of “conspiracy to collude with a foreign country or with external elements” under the NSL and of “inciting a riot”. They were accused of accepting donations from foreign organizations in order to provide financial assistance to individuals who had fled Hong Kong or organizations advocating for sanctions against Hong Kong officials. In July, five UN experts wrote to the Chinese and Hong Kong governments to raise concerns about the human rights implications of the proposed Regulation of Crowdfunding Activities issued in December 2022. They particularly highlighted the risks to the freedoms of association, peaceful assembly and expression of applying vaguely defined national security and counterterrorism grounds as a primary criterion for assessing the nature and purpose of crowdfunding activities. The State of the World’s Human Rights