Macau jails pro-democracy ex-lawmaker Au Kam San for 12 years and six months

The verdict

A Macau court on Friday, 6 November, sentenced Au Kam San, a former pro-democracy lawmaker who also holds Portuguese citizenship, to 12 years and six months in prison. The 69-year-old, a former teacher, was found guilty of subversion against the political power of the State, breach of confidentiality and establishing contact with organisations, groups or individuals outside Macau to endanger national security. The judges considered one count of subversion and two counts of establishing such contacts proven. The sentence was read in an open session at 10:00 local time, which an official source said four media outlets attended, while the evidence behind the ruling was not published. The case is the first publicly known prosecution under the territory's 2009 national security law.

The charges and the closed trial

According to the court, Au spent several years cooperating with hostile organisations abroad, helping to gather, prepare and publish images and information with political claims judged subversive. The judges also found that he sought to incite Macau residents to hate the Central People's Government and to overthrow the fundamental system of the State. The court did not name the organisations involved and said the conduct continued even after the 2023 revision of the national security law. The trial ran for only three days behind closed doors, a step the court said was needed to avoid harm to state security interests, and it ended in September. Au was detained in July 2025, and Justice Abroad says he spent almost 12 months in custody without being able to speak to his family.

Portugal and the European Union

Portugal's government has been restrained on the case. In September 2025, during a visit to Macau, Prime Minister Luís Montenegro said he had not raised Au's detention in a meeting with Sam Hou Fai and that the matter called for discretion. Montenegro and Sam Hou Fai met again in April in Lisbon, but nothing was said publicly about the detention. Neither China nor Macau recognises dual nationality. The European Union condemned the arrest in 2025, saying it added to concerns about the erosion of political pluralism in Macau.

Calls for release and criticism

Michael Polak, a London-based lawyer who directs Justice Abroad, said in a statement on Friday that Portugal and the European Union should press Macau to let Au leave the territory instead of serving more than a decade in prison. He called the closed trial a farce that brings shame on Macau and said it would affect global perceptions of the territory. Justice Abroad filed a complaint on 11 September with the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. Critics say the case reflects Beijing's emphasis on security and intolerance of dissent, although Macau's pro-democracy movement has never been as influential as Hong Kong's. Au sat for two decades in a legislature dominated by pro-China loyalists before stepping down in 2021, and he co-organised Macau's commemorations of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. Macau, a former Portuguese colony, has run as a special administrative region of China since its return in 1999.