CONDEMNATION of the ruling on August 17th by Hong Kong’s Court of Appeal, which sentenced three pro-democracy activists to jail terms of between six and eight months, was swift and widespread. “Resisting totalitarianism is no crime”, read one of the banners carried by tens of thousands of people who joined a protest march against the court’s decision.

The three are among the best known of the territory’s pro-democracy activists. Their sentences caused one of the biggest protests in Hong Kong since the “Umbrella Movement” in 2014 that they had helped to lead. The unrest had been the subject of their trial: their offences were to storm into a government compound during it, and in one case to incite others to do so.

The Hong Kong government is satisfied with the outcome. It had requested that the trio, Alex Chow, Nathan Law and Joshua Wong (Mr Wong is pictured), be given stiffer sentences after a lower court last year ordered two of them to perform community service and gave one of them a suspended three-week jail term. The government in Beijing is doubtless happy, too. The three men represent a new force in Hong Kong’s politics that China loathes: a feisty youth-led one, that supports civil disobedience in pursuit of its demands for more democracy and greater autonomy from China.

The jail terms mean that the three will be barred from standing for political office for five years—one reason, perhaps, why the government may have been so keen for them to be locked up. The reason it gave publicly is that it wanted the sentences to act as a greater deterrent. The Umbrella Movement was the first large civil-disobedience campaign since Hong Kong was handed back to China in 1997; it blocked several major roads for weeks.

The unrest in 2014 left many pro-democracy campaigners feeling jaded. The government, backed by the Communist Party in Beijing, made no concessions. Since then, signs of growing encroachment by China’s government in Hong Kong’s affairs have failed to revive the fervour that, at least initially, gave the umbrella protests their impetus before they eventually fizzled out. The pro-democracy camp has become ever more divided between those who simply want full democracy and people described as “localists”—some of whom want outright independence.

Prisoners with principles

Many of the trio’s supporters regard the new sentences as vindictive, aimed at punishing the three men for their views, not just their actions. They call them “political prisoners”, and accuse the court of having bowed to the government’s will. There is no proof of that, but the accusation itself is a sign of worrying change in Hong Kong. China’s attempts to lean on Hong Kong’s judiciary have been undermining confidence. In 2014 China said Hong Kong’s judges should be “patriotic” (a term understood by Chinese officials to mean loyal to the party). Last year China’s rubber-stamp parliament issued a ruling aimed at affecting the outcome of a court case under way in Hong Kong about whether two pro-democracy legislators had taken their oaths properly. The pair were stripped of their seats. In July four others were too, including Mr Law, one of those who have just been sent to jail.

The “political prisoner” label may well stick. It was used in an open letter written by 23 international political figures demanding the trio’s release. Among the signatories was Malcolm Rifkind, who was Britain’s foreign secretary in the build-up to Hong Kong’s handover. Unusually, however, the liberal-leaning Hong Kong Bar Association issued a joint statement with the more pro-establishment Law Society in defence of the appeal court’s ruling. Martin Lee, a lawyer and veteran campaigner for democracy, says he can see no evidence of political bias in the court’s judgment, even though he disagrees with it.

But as Mr Lee says, perceptions matter. Carrie Lam took office in July as Hong Kong’s leader pledging to heal political wounds. The jailings will make that more difficult. The courts are processing dozens more cases involving protesters. The hope of reconciliation between the government and its critics was small even before the tougher sentences were imposed.

One battleground will be by-elections that must eventually be held for the seats left vacant by the six legislators who were expelled. Localists are likely to join the fray, says Ivan Choy of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Sympathy for them may prompt rival democrats not to stand against them. The court ruling may have been intended to silence rebellious young people. Instead, it could goad them.