Two Tiananmen vigil activists convicted in HK

HONG KONG:

A Hong Kong court found on Friday two activists, who organised annual vigils marking China’s deadly Tiananmen crackdown in 1989, guilty of “incitement to subversion”, according to a press summary handed out to reporters.

A three-judge panel said they found the two defendants, Lee Cheuk-yan, 69, and Chow Hang-tung, 41, had committed acts that constituted “overthrowing or undermining the basic system... established by the Constitution” of China.

Lee and Chow were charged with subversion crimes in 2021 and have been behind bars since, under a Beijing-imposed national security law. On Friday, they sat silently in the dock as the judges
returned their verdict. They face a maximum penalty of 10 years in
jail, with sentencing
expected at a later date.

Hong Kong and Macau used to be the only places on Chinese soil that permitted public vigils to mourn those who died on June 4, 1989, when Beijing sent troops and tanks to crush protests calling for political reform in and around the capital’s Tiananmen Square.

The defendants were leaders of the now-defunct Hong Kong Alliance, the group that organised annual vigils in the city’s Victoria Park. Prosecutors said the two leaders’ remarks over the years were not merely expressions of personal opinion, “but were intended to incite others to commit unlawful acts”.

A third defendant, 74-year-old former lawmaker Albert Ho, pleaded guilty in January. A guilty plea typically results in a reduced sentence. Their case has been widely criticised for exemplifying the erosion of freedom of expression in the city.