Hong Kong Activists Await Verdict Over Tiananmen Vigil Role

Two prominent Hong Kong activists will learn their fate on Friday as a court delivers its verdict in a case stemming from the city's long-running annual commemoration of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.

Chow Hang-tung and Lee Cheuk-yan, former leaders of the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic and Democratic Movements of China, have pleaded not guilty to a charge of inciting subversion. If convicted, they face up to ten years in prison. The verdict is scheduled to be handed down by a panel of three government-vetted judges at 10 a.m. local time.

The case is among the latest to target Hong Kong's once-active pro-democracy movement, which has been largely dismantled under the national security law imposed by Beijing in 2020. The law was introduced weeks after the annual candlelight vigil was banned during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, following the massive anti-government protests of 2019.

For three decades, the Hong Kong Alliance organized peaceful candlelight vigils in Victoria Park that drew tens of thousands of participants each year to remember the victims of the 1989 crackdown. What was long seen as a solemn commemoration is now characterized by the government as an act of subversion.

Prosecutors have denied the case is political, arguing that the alliance incited others to overthrow the leadership of China's ruling Communist Party through unlawful means, pointing to its demand for an end to one-party rule.

Lee, a former legislator and longtime labor activist, told the court that the call was not about ending the party's leadership but about moving toward democracy and allowing people to choose their leaders. Chow, a barrister who defended herself in the trial, argued that "ending one-party rule" meant ending a state where power is unrestricted. She also criticized what she described as a standard of right and wrong that had been "turned upside down."

In a social media post on Thursday, Chow recalled being shackled in handcuffs and chains for court trips and led "like a dog." She wrote that justice lives in the hearts of the people and that one verdict does not matter much.

The 1989 crackdown, in which hundreds and possibly thousands of people were killed as tanks rolled into central Beijing, remains a pivotal moment in China's modern history. It determined that the market reforms transforming the country into the world's second-largest economy would not be matched by political liberalization.

Beijing has said the security law was necessary for Hong Kong's stability. However, many leading activists have been jailed under it, including former media tycoon Jimmy Lai, and dozens of civil society groups have dissolved.