Macau sentences ex-lawmaker to 12.5 years in first national security trial

A court in the Chinese territory Macau convicted on Friday ex-lawmaker and democracy campaigner Au Kam San of several offences including subversion, sentencing him to 12 years and six months in prison.

Au, 69, is the first person convicted under national security laws widened in 2023 in Macau, the former Portuguese colony and casino hub which reverted to China in 1999.

Au, detained in July 2025 and whose closed-door trial concluded in September in three days, was found guilty of “subversion against the political power of the State” among other offences, a court statement said.

Au “personally provided, over a long period of time, assistance and collaboration to external hostile organisations in the collection, preparation, and public dissemination of various images and information that were manifestly filled with political claims of a subversive nature against the political authority of the State,” it said.

He also sought to “incite hatred among Macau residents against the Central People’s Government, with the intent to overthrow and undermine the fundamental system of the State enshrined in the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China,” it added.

The European Union had last year condemned Au’s arrest, saying it only heightened concerns about the “erosion of political pluralism” in Macau.

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