2 organizers of Hong Kong's Tiananmen vigils convicted in national security case

HONG KONG (AP) — Two former organizers of Hong Kong’s annual vigils in remembrance of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown were convicted by government-approved judges Friday of inciting others to overthrowing China's communist system.

Lee Cheuk-yan and Chow Hang-tung, former leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, were charged in 2021 under a China-imposed national security law that has effectively crushed the city’s previously thriving pro-democracy movement. The alliance was also found guilty.

Lee and Chow are expected to be sentenced at a later date. They both had pleaded not guilty and face a maximum prison term of 10 years.

According to a press summary given to reporters at court, the three judges said the prosecution proved that the alliance’s call for “end one-party dictatorship” did not aim to demand that the Communist Party return to the system of multiparty cooperation under the constitution, but to end its leadership status under the constitution.

They were also satisfied with the arguments that the “end” in the phrase carried the meaning of “overthrowing” and “undermining” and the defendants “intentionally encouraged supporters of the alliance to wait for the right time to carry out the goal of ‘end one-party dictatorship’ with unlawful means," the summary said.

Lee and Chow smiled and waved at the public gallery before they left the courtroom.

Hong Kong had an active pro-democracy movement

The verdict is among the latest involving Hong Kong’s once-vibrant pro-democracy movement, which has largely been dismantled by Hong Kong and Chinese authorities.

For three decades, the candlelight vigil organized by the alliance was the only large-scale public commemoration of the Tiananmen crackdown that took place on Chinese soil. It drew tens of thousands of people annually to mourn the victims. 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 to quell the 2019 massive anti-government protests.

Observers said their trial symbolized the erosion of freedom of expression in the former British colony, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

Eric Lai, a senior fellow with the Georgetown Center for Asian Law, said the charge of inciting subversion was commonly used in mainland China to criminalize the acts of 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.

The vigil organizers were accused of inciting the overthrow of China's ruling party

During the trial, prosecutors said the case was not political and focused on what they viewed as a call by the alliance to incite 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.

But Lee told the court that the call was not about ending the party’s leadership but about moving toward democracy, letting the 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” means ending a state where power is unrestricted. She criticized how the standard for determining right and wrong was turned upside down in this case.

In her Patreon post Thursday, she recalled being shackled in handcuffs, and in waist and ankle chains, for trips to court from prison, saying she 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.

When the trial began in January, a co-defendant, Albert Ho, pleaded guilty, which typically could result in a reduced sentence.

Lee and Chow are expected to plead for lesser penalties at a separate hearing and could be sentenced alongside Ho.

Supporters cast doubt on allegations

Dozens of people lined up outside the court under drizzling rain ahead of the hearing.

Tang Ngok-kwan, a former alliance member, said police wouldn't let him join the line if he insisted on bringing along “sensitive” materials, including bookmarks printed with “vindicate June 4.” The date is the crackdown’s anniversary. He decided not to go into the court.

Former vigil goer Margaret Chan, who joined the queue at 6 a.m., said the alliance’s name carried 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 as military tanks rolled into the center of Beijing. The crackdown was a pivotal moment in China’s modern history, determining that the market reform that transformed the country into the world’s second-largest economy would not be coupled with political liberalization.