A victory, of a small and narrow sort: seven Hong Kong pro-democracy activists including media publisher Jimmy Lai have been cleared of organising a rally in August 2019, which brought 1.7 million people out onto the streets at the height of pro-democracy protests against Beijing. A Hong Kong appeals court found this week that there was no evidence the defendants, who are some of the most recognisable faces in the now-crushed democracy movement, had planned the protest. But it upheld separate convictions for taking part in an “unauthorised” assembly. Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC, international counsel for Lai, called the decision a “figleaf of due process”. Lai remains in prison serving a separate fraud conviction and faces life imprisonment on national security law charges in a trial due to take place next month.