Two former leaders of a Hong Kong group that organized annual vigils commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown have been found guilty of subversion under a national security law imposed by Beijing. Lee Cheuk-yan and Chow Hang-tung, who led the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, face a maximum prison sentence of ten years.
Three judges ruled that the alliance's call to "end one-party dictatorship" aimed to dismantle the ruling Communist Party's constitutional leadership status. The court concluded that the phrase "end" implied "overthrowing" and "undermining," and that Lee and Chow's statements after the national security law's introduction violated the constitution. The judges stated 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."
The China-imposed legislation, introduced in 2020, has significantly curtailed Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement. Lee and Chow pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The Hong Kong Alliance had organized candlelight vigils for decades, which were the only large-scale public commemoration of the Tiananmen crackdown in China, drawing tens of thousands of attendees annually. The crackdowns on June 4, 1989, saw soldiers shoot at protesters calling for democratic reform in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, with estimates of over 1,000 deaths.
In 2020, the vigil was initially banned due to the COVID-19 pandemic and was subsequently made permanently illegal. Beijing maintains the security law is essential for the city's stability, enacted after large-scale protests in Hong Kong in 2019. Critics, however, accuse the Chinese government of eroding civil liberties previously promised to Hong Kong after its handover from British rule in 1997.
The verdict has drawn international condemnation. Rosie Winterton, the UK Foreign Office's Indo-Pacific minister, stated that the verdict demonstrates "even peaceful acts of remembrance in Hong Kong are now treated by the authorities as threats to national security." She added that the use of the national security law undermines commitments China made to Hong Kong under the 1984 Sino-British joint declaration.
Mark Clifford, president of the Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation committee, said Lee and Chow were "silenced because they spoke truth to power and held a mirror up to the Chinese Communist Party." Amnesty International described the verdict as "another grim milestone," asserting that Lee and Chow were jailed solely for organizing peaceful commemorations.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres' spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, stated that Guterres "has always believed that people should be allowed to speak and protest and demonstrate peacefully without fear of arrest or prosecution."
Lee and Chow are expected to argue for lesser penalties at a future hearing. As of 2021, Hong Kong residents have been eligible to enter the UK via a special visa program.