Macao has jailed former pro-democracy lawmaker Au Kam San for 12 and a half years in the territory’s first publicly known prosecution under its national security law, following a closed-door trial that has drawn condemnation from human rights lawyers. The Macao Au Kam San sentence is the harshest handed down under a law that had, until his arrest, never been used against a politician.
Au, 69, was sentenced on Friday after a court found him guilty of subverting state power, breach of confidentiality, and establishing contact with organisations, groups or individuals outside Macao to commit acts endangering national security, according to the Associated Press. His arrest last year was the first publicly known prosecution under Macao’s national security law since it was enacted in 2009. The trial was held behind closed doors in September.
A year incommunicado, a two-day trial
Justice Abroad, a London-based legal organisation acting for Au, said the procedure used against him included almost 12 months of incommunicado detention after he was seized from his home, along with a number of pro-democracy books, on 30 July 2025. The group said the trial, which began on 16 September 2026, lasted only two days despite the seriousness of the charges and the potential consequences for Au, a retired schoolteacher and former member of Macao’s Legislative Assembly.
Michael Polak, director of Justice Abroad and a barrister based in London, described the proceedings as a sham trial and said the case had been raised with United Nations bodies. A submission was made to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and to UN Special Rapporteurs on freedom of expression, assembly and belief on 11 September 2026, accusing the Macao authorities of breaching fair trial standards and persecuting Au for his non-violent beliefs rather than for any genuine criminal act.
A warning beyond Macao
The sentence lands a day after Hong Kong jailed activist Joshua Wong for 10 years in a national security case, and it underlines how the two former European colonies — Macao returned to China from Portugal in 1999, Hong Kong from Britain in 1997 — are now using security laws in strikingly similar ways. Macao’s law sat unused against politicians for 16 years; its first use has produced a 12-and-a-half-year term for a 69-year-old former legislator.
Macao’s authorities have not publicly answered the fair-trial criticisms. For pro-democracy figures in the territory, the message is unmistakable: the law that lay dormant for a decade and a half is now active, and the penalty for testing it is severe.
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Sources: Reporter World News (AP via PTI, 6 Nov 2026); Justice Abroad press release (6 Nov 2026).
