Hong Kong convicts Tiananmen vigil organisers in national security case

A Hong Kong court convicted two former organisers of the annual Tiananmen vigil and the alliance they led. The verdict deepens concerns over shrinking civil liberties under the national security law.

In Short

• The alliance ran Hong Kong's annual June 4 candlelight memorial for decades
• The vigil was banned in 2020 before Beijing imposed the security law
• Judges withheld reasons in court, saying the full ruling would appear online

Two former organisers of Hong Kong's annual vigil for the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown were convicted on Friday in a national security case under a law imposed by China. Lee Cheuk-yan and Chow Hang-tung, former leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, had pleaded not guilty to inciting subversion. The alliance was also found guilty.

The case is one of the latest involving Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement, which has been largely dismantled by Hong Kong and Chinese authorities. Lee and Chow face a maximum prison term of 10 years and are expected to be sentenced at a later date.

For three decades, the alliance organised a candlelight vigil that drew tens of thousands of people each year to mourn those killed in China in 1989. It was the only large-scale public commemoration of its kind. The event was banned in 2020 during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, weeks before Beijing imposed the security law on Hong Kong after the massive anti-government protests of 2019.

Observers say the trial reflects the shrinking space for freedom of expression in the former British colony, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997. The judges did not read out the reasons for the conviction and said the full judgment would be put online later.

Eric Lai, a senior fellow with the Georgetown Center for Asian Law, said the charge of inciting subversion was commonly used in mainland China against human rights lawyers, activists and intellectuals, including late Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo. “We can see to what extent the court in Hong Kong falls into the level of the party-led judiciary in the mainland through the criminal verdict,” he said.

During the trial, prosecutors said the case was not political. They argued that the alliance had called on others to overthrow the leadership of China's ruling Communist Party through unlawful means, pointing to “ending one-party rule”, one of the group's core demands. Lee told the court that the phrase was not about ending the party's leadership, but about moving towards democracy and letting people decide who leads them, and that the Communist Party should not enforce “dictatorship”.

Chow, a barrister who defended herself, said “ending one-party rule” meant ending a system in which power is unrestricted. She criticised what she called a reversal of the standard for deciding right and wrong in the case. In a Patreon post on Thursday, she said she had been shackled in handcuffs and waist and ankle chains for trips to court from prison, and was walked by correctional service officers “like a dog”. “Justice lives in the hearts of the people. There is no need to look up to this kind of top-down ruling, and one verdict doesn't matter much,” she said.

The trial, initially scheduled for 75 days, moved faster than expected and finished closing statements on the 24th day. When it began in January, another defendant, Albert Ho, pleaded guilty, a step that could lead to a reduced sentence. Lee and Chow are expected to seek lighter penalties at a separate hearing and could be sentenced alongside Ho.

Dozens of people queued outside the court in drizzling rain before the hearing. Tang Ngok-kwan, a former alliance member, said police would not let him join the line if he insisted on carrying what they called “sensitive” materials, including bookmarks printed with “vindicate June 4”, a reference to the anniversary of the crackdown. He chose not to enter the court. Tang said a guilty verdict against the alliance would “upend his understanding” of the city's laws. Former vigil attendee Margaret Chan, who joined the queue at 6 am, said the alliance's name itself included the word “patriotic”. “Everyone is patriotic. How to incite? Incite others to be patriotic?” she said.

Hundreds of people, and possibly thousands, were killed in the 1989 crackdown when military tanks moved into central Beijing. After COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, the former vigil site in Hong Kong was used instead for a carnival organised by pro-Beijing groups. Beijing has said the 2020 security law was needed for the city's stability. Since then, many leading activists, including former media tycoon Jimmy Lai, have been jailed under the law, and dozens of civil society groups, including the alliance, have dissolved.

The convictions of Lee, Chow and the alliance mark another major case under Hong Kong's national security law, centred on a vigil that for years was the city's best-known public remembrance of the 1989 crackdown. Sentencing will take place later.

With PTI Inputs

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