A Hong Kong court sentenced three activists who for years organized vigils in remembrance of China's 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown to prison for terms ranging from 5 to over 7 years in prison on Friday in a case that is widely seen as a barometer of the city's freedoms as Beijing clamps down on dissent. Lee Cheuk-yan, 69; Chow Hang-tung, 41; and Albert Ho, 74, were convicted of inciting subversion earlier this year under a Beijing-imposed national security law, the AP reports. Lee and Chow, who pleaded not guilty, received prison terms of 7 years and 7 years and 3 months. Ho was given 5 years and 2 months, lower than his co-defendants, partly because of his guilty plea.
The three defendants were charged in September 2021. They have been held in custody for years. They were leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, which for three decades organized a Tiananmen vigil. It continued after the 1997 handover from British rule, becoming the only large-scale, public commemoration of the event in China. Hundreds and possibly thousands of people were killed as military tanks rolled into the center of Beijing and troops opened fire to end the student-led pro-democracy protests in the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown.
- The annual vigil drew tens of thousands of people, sometimes more than 100,000 to Hong Kong's Victoria Park every year for decades. But authorities banned it in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic. The vigils symbolized the civil liberties that set Hong Kong apart from mainland China.
- The case centered on the group's longtime slogan: "End one-party dictatorship," the Guardian reports. The court said the trio "intended to cause others to lose confidence in the Chinese Communist party by stirring up hostility and causing division." The defense said they were exercising freedom of speech and insisted the alliance had not asked people to adopt any illegal means.
- Hong Kong once had a vibrant civil society marked by massive protests and a freewheeling press scene. But after a 2019 pro-democracy protest movement rocked the city, authorities reduced public choice in elections and prosecuted leaders of news outlets known for their critical reports of the government. Many leading activists were imprisoned under the security law, and dozens of civil society groups dissolved, including the alliance.
- "It is still surreal to me," Lee's wife, Elizabeth Tang, tells the Guardian. "Every time the Alliance had an activity, they would get the police permission for every one." The now-banned vigils "are what made Hong Kong different," she says.
- "This sentencing is a triple tragedy: for the activists being unjustly punished; the survivors and victims of the Tiananmen crackdown itself; and the generations of Hongkongers denied the space to discuss one of the most consequential events in modern Chinese history," Sarah Brooks, Amnesty International's deputy regional director, said in a statement, per the BBC. Human Rights Watch said: "The harsh sentences against peaceful Tiananmen vigil organizers expose the cruelty and insecurity of a government afraid of memory and the people."
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