The Beijing-controlled puppet government in Hong Kong began a trial under China’s tyrannical “national security law” on Thursday for the leaders of a group that organized candlelight vigils in memory of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
The Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, commonly known as the “Hong Kong Alliance,” was a grassroots organization established in 1989 to advocate for democratic reform and campaign for the release of political prisoners.
The Hong Kong Alliance organized its famous candlelight vigils in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park for three decades, with tens of thousands of participants, until the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic gave the Beijing-controlled government an excuse to ban it for the first time in 2002.
Beijing wanted to squash the vigils because the Chinese Communist Party’s heavily edited version of history denies that the Tiananmen Square massacre occurred. When China forced Hong Kong to adopt a draconian “national security law” in 2020, in a bid to crush the huge pro-democracy protests that were sweeping the island, it had the tools it needed to extinguish those Tiananmen Square candles once and for all.
The national security law effectively criminalized all criticism of the Chinese Communist government as sedition. The leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance, Chow Hang-tung and Lee Cheuk-yan, are now standing trial on charges of “inciting subversion” by leading others to participate in actions “aimed at subverting state power” and disrupting the “fundamental systems” established by the Chinese government.
Chow and Lee could face sentences of up to ten years in prison. The Hong Kong Alliance already faced the death penalty, having disbanded in 2021 under heavy pressure from the Chinese regime, along with many other civil society groups. Some of the other members have been arrested and charged with defying the ban on Tiananmen vigils.
Chow, a 40-year-old barrister who is representing herself in court, has already been in custody for over 1,500 days. She filed a successful appeal to overturn a previous conviction of “colluding with foreign governments” – a charge the regime loves to use against protesters – in 2021. However, her recent attempt to have the subversion charges against her dismissed was not successful.
Lee, a 68-year-old former legislator and trade union official, has been detained for a similar length of time already. He was convicted of participating in an unauthorized assembly in 2024.
Albert Ho, a third leader of the Hong Kong Alliance brought up on the same charges as Chow and Lee, has already pled guilty and will not be participating in the current trial.
Human rights groups around the world have called on the court to drop the subversion charges against Chow, Lee, and Ho.
“This case is not about national security. It is about rewriting history and punishing those who refuse to forget the victims of the Tiananmen crackdown,” said Sarah Brooks of Amnesty International (AI).
“Hong Kong authorities are wrongfully detaining and prosecuting Chow Hang-tung because she plays a leading role in reminding Hong Kong people and the world of China’s 1989 Tiananmen Massacre. The Hong Kong authorities appear bent on suppressing activists who tell the Chinese government what they don’t want to hear,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) said when Chow was arrested in 2021.
A coalition of human rights groups wrote to UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer on Thursday, asking him to do “everything possible” to secure the freedom of Hong Kong political prisoners during his upcoming visit to Beijing – including Chow, Lee, and ailing media mogul Jimmy Lai, a British citizen who has been imprisoned for five years.
