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 for inciting others to overthrow China's communist leadership.
Lee Cheuk-yan and Chow Hang-tung, former leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, were charged with inciting subversion in 2021 under a China-imposed national security law that has effectively crushed the city’s previously thriving pro-democracy movement. They face a maximum prison term of 10 years. The alliance was also found guilty.
The three judges ruled that the alliance’s call to “end one-party dictatorship” did not aim to demand that the ruling Communist Party return to the system of multiparty cooperation under the constitution, but to end its leadership status under the constitution. They said the “end” in the phrase carried the meaning of “overthrowing” and “undermining.”
In the verdict, they wrote that the defendants persisted in the call after the law's introduction, neglecting that it was in breach of the constitution, which states the party's leadership is a defining feature of socialism with Chinese characteristics. That falls within “other unlawful means” under the security law, the judges said.
The defendants “intentionally encouraged supporters of the alliance to wait for the right time to carry out the goal to ‘end one-party dictatorship’ by unlawful means,” they said.
The judges insisted they were not tried because of their political views.
Lee and Chow smiled and waved at the public gallery before they left the courtroom. They are expected to be sentenced at a later date. They will plead for lesser sentences next week, one of the judges said.
The verdict is among the latest involving Hong Kong’s once-vibrant pro-democracy movement, which has largely been dismantled after the security law's introduction in 2020.
For decades, Hong Kong’s annual candlelight vigil was the only large-scale public commemoration of the Tiananmen crackdown and attracted tens of thousands of people annually. The crackdown remains a political taboo on the mainland, where authorities tightly censor discussion of the events and prohibit public commemorations. Hong Kong’s greater political freedoms, granted under Beijing’s “one country, two systems” governing framework, allowed the vigil to keep the memories alive, until authorities banned it during the coronavirus pandemic.
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 Peace Prize 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, Lee told the court that their 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.”
In a Patreon post Thursday, Chow 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, codefendant Albert Ho pleaded guilty, which typically could result in a reduced sentence. He will also plead for a lesser sentence next week.
After the conviction, Lee’s wife, Elizabeth Tang, told reporters she was disappointed and angry about the result even though it was within her expectations. She insisted Lee was innocent.
“I feel it's unfair. I feel the judges did not consider our lawyers' opinions and materials,” she said, adding that they would decide whether to appeal later.
Chow's mother, Medina Chow Lau Wah-chun, said she hoped the “environment can be a little healthier."
“Flowers and plants of all colors can bloom,” she said.
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 anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. 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.
Amnesty International Hong Kong Overseas spokesperson Fernando Cheung said the verdict underlines how the security law is being used to “punish” people for peacefully remembering one of the darkest chapters in recent Chinese history.
Hong Kong leader John Lee said the alliance has long deliberately planted seeds of hatred against the party and the central government in society, and their acts endangered national security.
Steve Li, chief superintendent of the police's national security department, said the case would help with future law enforcement.
“It also lets the public know that it is not that one cannot criticize, or cannot do anything at all. It is simply that there must be no incitement, and no subversion of state power," he said.
Hundreds of people, and possibly thousands, were killed in the 1989 crackdown as military tanks rolled into the center of Beijing. The Tiananmen Square crackdown was a pivotal moment in China’s modern history, showing that the market reform that transformed the country into the world’s second-largest economy would not be coupled with political liberalization.
After COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, the former vigil site in Hong Kong was occupied instead by a carnival organized by pro-Beijing groups.
Beijing said the 2020 security law was necessary for the city’s stability. Many leading activists have been jailed under the same law, including pro-democracy former media tycoon Jimmy Lai. Under the drastic political changes, dozens of civil society groups also dissolved, including the Hong Kong alliance.
