Tiananmen

Aug. 21 (UPI) — Two Hong Kong activists who organized vigils to commemorate those killed in a crackdown by the Chinese military on the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests were facing up to 10 years in prison after being convicted Friday of inciting subversion.

Chow Hang-tung, 41, and Lee Cheuk-yan, 69, who had been in custody since 2021, “incited other persons to organize, plan, commit or participate in acts by unlawful means with a view to subverting state power.”

The two leaders of the now-dissolved Hong Kong Alliance organized the vigils, which had been held annually on June 4 since 1990, after they were banned in 2020 after a tough new National Security Law was imposed from Beijing, following huge street protests that rocked the territory the previous year.

Former Democratic Party lawmaker Albert Ho, 74, who was charged alongside Chow and Lee, pleaded guilty at the start of the trial in January.

Amnesty International expressed dismay at the verdicts saying it demonstrated how the national security law was being used to go after people for peacefully marking the anniversary of one of the most sinister events in the history of China, in the only place in the country where it was permitted.

It said the decision marked another “grim milestone in the government’s deliberate campaign to erase that legacy and silence those who seek truth, justice and accountability.”

Deputy Regional Director Sarah Brooks said Chow and Lee’s “crime” was not one that would be recognized anywhere else.

“The Hong Kong authorities should quash these convictions and end the ongoing persecution of people seeking to keep the memory of Tiananmen alive. Chow Hang-tung and Lee Cheuk-yan are prisoners of conscience who should never have been prosecuted in the first place. They must be released immediately and unconditionally.”

The Foreign Office in London issued a statement criticizing the case saying it was not in line with the “one-country-two systems” treaty Britain signed with Beijing for the return of its former colony which guarantees the rights and way of life of Hong Kong people for 50 years after the handover in 1997.

“This verdict is a further demonstration that even peaceful acts of remembrance in Hong Kong are now treated by the authorities as threats to national security. The extensive use of Beijing’s national security law to punish and restrict peaceful expression undermines the commitments China made to Hong Kong under the 1984 Sino-British joint declaration,” said Indo-Pacific minister Rosie Winterton.

“We reiterate our call for the national security law to be repealed, and for rights and freedoms to be respected in the Hong Kong special administrative region,” she added.

Activist group says the ‘twisted’ Hong Kong judicial system had long ago decided that the pair were guilty.

A Hong Kong court has found two pro-democracy activists guilty on national security charges in a trial widely viewed as exemplifying the erosion of freedom of expression in the Chinese city.

Lee Cheuk-yan, 69, and Chow Hang-tung, 41, former leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, were found guilty of “incitement to subversion” for their role in organising candlelit vigils to mark Beijing’s deadly 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, in a Hong Kong court on Friday. The two had pleaded not guilty and were charged in 2021.

The pair could face up to 10 years in jail. Sentencing is expected at a later date.

Prosecutors argued that the pair “endanger[ed] national security in the name of human rights”.

Chow, a human rights barrister who represented herself, told the court in May that the law itself was on trial.

Friday’s verdict was “no surprise”, said Mark Clifford, president of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation.

Hong Kong’s “twisted” judicial system had already decided the pair were guilty in 2021, he said. He described Lee and Chow as “true Chinese patriots” who were silenced because they “spoke truth to power” and “held up a mirror to the Chinese Communist Party”.

Hong Kong’s crackdown

For three decades, the candlelight vigil organised by the alliance was the only large-scale public commemoration of the Tiananmen crackdown, drawing tens of thousands of people annually to mourn the victims in China. 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 antigovernment protests.

The alliance’s leaders have been behind bars since they were charged.

Chow and Lee “exposed the Chinese government’s fears of the memory of its own atrocities”, Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said, urging governments around the world to hold Beijing to account for erasing Hong Kong’s freedoms.

Earlier this year, Jimmy Lai, 78, a media mogul and high-profile rights campaigner in Hong Kong, was found guilty on national security charges and sentenced to 20 years behind bars.

Led ‘like a dog on a lead’

In a personal blog published in the days leading up to the verdict, Chow detailed her treatment by correctional services, in which she described being led “like a dog on a lead”, shackled at the wrists, waist and ankles.

She described a new method of restraint, with specialised handcuffs, as the source of significant pain during her long detention: “One can only ‘choose’ which part of the body shall suffer in turn” due to the bodily contortions forced by the restraints she has been held in.

Chow is one of the few high-profile political prisoners detained in Hong Kong to continue to speak out publicly against the authorities.

In June 1989, China’s government sent tanks and soldiers to crush a pro-democracy movement that had installed itself in Beijing’s central Tiananmen Square. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of people were killed by soldiers, and many were injured. Beijing has since sought to censor mention of the incident in China.

Lee and Chow were also leaders of the now-defunct Hong Kong Alliance (HKA).

The HKA was founded in May 1989 to support students holding pro-democracy rallies. Weeks later, the Communist Party crushed pro-democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square with troops and tanks. Estimates of the death toll range from a few hundred to many thousands.

Over the next three decades, HKA called on authorities to accept responsibility for the crackdown, free dissidents and introduce democratic reform.

The Alliance’s leaders were charged in 2021 and have been behind bars since.

Rights group Amnesty International has said the case “relies on vague, overly broad and arbitrary definitions of ‘subversion'”.

Sarah Brooks, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director, said Chow and Lee had “not committed any recognisable crime”.

“Chow Hang-tung and Lee Cheuk-yan are prisoners of conscience who should never have been prosecuted in the first place. They must be released immediately and unconditionally”, she added.

In a separate case, Chow was arrested in June 2021 for “inciting” the public to take part in that year’s vigil and later found guilty.

However, Hong Kong’s top court overturned that conviction in 2022, with a judge ruling the police hadn’t properly justified the vigil’s ban.

Chow Hang-tung spoke to the BBC in 2021, weeks before her arrest on 4 June 2022.

“I am prepared to be arrested. That is how Hong Kong is now,” she had said.

“I am willing to pay the price for fighting for democracy”.