Hong Kong court convicts Tiananmen vigil organisers

Two former organisers of Hong Kong's annual vigil in remembrance of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown have been convicted under a China-imposed law that has effectively crushed the city's previously thriving pro-democracy movement.

Activists Lee Cheuk-yan and Chow Hang-tung were charged in 2021 with inciting subversion under the national security law. They had both pleaded not guilty and face a maximum prison term of 10 years.

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 organised by the alliance was the only large-scale public commemoration that drew 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 anti-government protests.

Observers say their trial symbolises 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 Centre for Asian Law, said the charge of inciting subversion was commonly used in mainland China to criminalise the acts of human rights lawyers, activists and intellectuals, including late Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo.

During the trial, prosecutors said the case was 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 goal 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.

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.

Hundreds of people, and possibly thousands, were killed when military tanks rolled into the centre of Beijing in 1989. 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 liberalisation.

After COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, the former vigil site in Hong Kong was occupied instead by a carnival organised by pro-Beijing groups.

Beijing said the 2020 security law was necessary for the city's stability. Many leading activists were 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 alliance.