Two Hong Kong activists, Lee Cheuk-yan, 69, and Chow Hang-tung, 41, have been convicted of inciting others to subvert state power under the city's national security law. They organized annual vigils to commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.
Prosecutors argued that the defendants endangered national security in the name of human rights. Chow, who represented herself, stated that the law itself was on trial. Both face a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail, with sentencing to be determined at a later date.
A third defendant, former lawmaker Albert Ho, 74, entered a guilty plea in January. He had also been accused of inciting others to subvert state power under the China-introduced law.
Lee and Chow were leaders of the now-defunct Hong Kong Alliance (HKS), founded in May 1989 to support students involved in pro-democracy rallies. The group had called on authorities for decades to accept responsibility for the 1989 crackdown, release dissidents, and introduce democratic reform. The Alliance's leaders were charged in 2021 and have been detained since.
Hong Kong was previously one of the few locations within Chinese territory where public gatherings to mark the 1989 crackdown were permitted. Authorities banned these gatherings in 2020, citing COVID-19 policies, and they have not been resumed. The national security law, which criminalizes a broader range of dissenting actions, officially took effect in 2020.
Amnesty International has described the case as relying on vague and arbitrary definitions of subversion. The crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square by the Communist Party resulted in an estimated death toll ranging from several hundred to thousands.