A Hong Kong court on Friday convicted two activists who organised annual vigils marking China’s deadly Tiananmen crackdown of “incitement to subversion”, with the UN, rights groups and several countries condemning the silencing of free speech. Lee Cheuk-yan, 69, and Chow Hang-tung, 41, committed acts that constituted “overthrowing or undermining the basic system… established by the Constitution” of China, the verdict handed down by the three-judge panel said.
Lee and Chow — who sat silently in the dock as the judges returned their verdict — face a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail, with sentencing expected at a later date. The case has been widely criticised for exemplifying the erosion of freedom of expression in the city. The pair were charged in 2021 and have been behind bars since under a Beijing-imposed national security law. The judges said they had incited supporters to “use unlawful means… with the aim of subverting the state power”.
Semi-autonomous former colonies Hong Kong and Macau used to be the only places on Chinese soil that permitted public vigils to mourn those who died on June 4, 1989, when authorities sent troops and tanks to crush protests in and around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square urging political reform. Lee and Chow were leaders of the now-defunct Hong Kong Alliance, which organised annual vigils in the city’s Victoria Park.
Public commemoration has been effectively banned since Beijing imposed the national security law on Hong Kong in 2020, following huge and sometimes violent pro-democracy protests the year before.- ‘Stirring up hostility’ -The judges ruled the Hong Kong Alliance leaders had breached the Chinese constitution in their calls to “end one-party dictatorship” after Beijing imposed the security law.
Lee and Chow “intended to cause others to lose confidence” in the Chinese Communist Party, “stirring up hostility and causing division”, the court said. The pair rejected the charge brought against them, arguing that the “democratic transition” they advocated did not exclude the Communist Party’s leadership. Chow said in a blog post ahead of Friday’s hearing that “justice lies in the hearts of the people, there is no need to revere judgements handed down from above, and a single verdict is of little consequence”.
A third defendant, 74-year-old former lawmaker Albert Ho, pleaded guilty in January. A guilty plea typically results in a reduced sentence. Judge Alex Lee said the court expects to hear mitigation arguments next week. The United States, Britain, France and Germany all condemned the ruling, with Washington calling for Lee and Chow’s immediate release. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said “people should be allowed to speak and protest and demonstrate peacefully without fear of arrest and prosecution”, according to his spokesman Stephane Dujarric.- Family ‘furious’ -Lee’s wife Elizabeth Tang, a former union leader, told reporters after the verdict she was “furious, angry… because I don’t think he’s guilty”.
Medina Chow Lau Wah-chun, Chow’s mother, expressed “hope that the environment will become healthier, that flowers of all colours can bloom”. Steve Li, chief superintendent of the police’s National Security Department, welcomed the ruling and said the Hong Kong Alliance “spent years planting seeds of hatred against the Chinese Communist Party and the central government”.
Eric Lai, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Asian Law, said the “incitement to subversion” charge gives weight to intentions over actions.”Moderation of method offers no protection if the objective itself is held to be unconstitutional”, Lai told AFP.- ‘Chilling message’ -Taiwan, the self-ruled island Beijing claims is part of its territory, urged China to “stop political persecution”.
A spokesman for rights group Amnesty International, Fernando Cheung, said the ruling “marks another grim milestone in the government’s deliberate campaign” to erase the legacy of the Tiananmen vigil activists. Urania Chiu, a law lecturer at Oxford Brookes University, told AFP the case “sends a powerful and chilling message to civil society: any critique of the state and its policies, however peacefully made, is no longer welcome in Hong Kong”.
Fri, 21 Aug 2026 18:31:24 GMT