Guilty Verdicts for 2 Hong Kong Organizers of Tiananmen Vigils Spark Global Condemnation

The guilty verdicts delivered by a Hong Kong court against two organizers of the city’s annual vigil commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre have drawn condemnation from governments worldwide, which called the decisions politically motivated and further evidence of the diminishing freedom in the communist-controlled territory.

Lee Cheuk-yan, 69, and Chow Hang-tung, 41, face up to 10 years in prison after being convicted of incitement to subversion under a Beijing-imposed national security law.

Three Hong Kong government-picked judges delivered the verdict at the West Kowloon Law Courts Building on Aug. 21.

Chow and Lee, who have been in custody for nearly five years, were leaders of the now-dissolved Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China. For more than three decades, the group had organized the annual candlelight vigil in Victoria Park to remember a bloody clampdown in June 1989, when hundreds, possibly thousands, of unarmed pro-democracy protesters were killed by troops in Beijing. The alliance itself was also found guilty by the court.

A third leader, Albert Ho Chun-yan, 74, pleaded guilty in January, a move that could lead to a reduced prison sentence. Ho has been jailed for nearly four years.

Riley Barnes, U.S. assistant secretary of State for democracy, human rights, and labor, said the United States condemned the Hong Kong court’s verdicts, and called for the defendants’ immediate release.

“Their peaceful Tiananmen Square Massacre vigils sought only to remember the past and honor the lives lost in that assault,” Barnes wrote on X.

The European Union said the latest conviction confirmed “continuing deterioration of the freedoms” in Hong Kong.

“The politically motivated prosecution of the defendants, who were subject to prolonged pretrial detention, denial of bail, and in the case of Chow Hang-tung, repeated solitary confinement, undermines confidence in the rule of law,” the EU’s diplomatic arm, the European External Action Service, said in a statement.

It noted that the annual vigil organized by the alliance used to draw more than a hundred thousand Hongkongers. But no such commemoration has been held in the Asian financial hub since Beijing imposed the national security law in 2020.

Australia said the government is “deeply concerned” about the guilty verdicts for Chow and Lee.

“Our thoughts are with their family members and supporters at this difficult time,” Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said in a statement. It pledged to continue raising human rights concerns directly with Hong Kong and Beijing at the highest levels.

UK Under-Secretary of State for Indo-Pacific Rosie Winterton reiterated the government’s call to repeal the national security law and respect rights and freedoms in Hong Kong.

“This verdict is a further demonstration that even peaceful acts of remembrance in Hong Kong are now treated by the authorities as threats to national security,” Winterton said in a statement on Aug. 21.

“The extensive use of Beijing’s National Security Law to punish and restrict peaceful expression undermines the commitments China made to Hong Kong under the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration.”

Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, which oversees relations with China, called on the Chinese regime and Hong Kong to stop “political persecution” and release those detained in the case.

The Hong Kong government issued a statement welcoming the conviction while condemning what it called smears by “external forces” against the city’s judiciary and police throughout the trial.

The Chinese regime’s national security office in Hong Kong said in a statement that Beijing “firmly supported” the verdict against Chow and Lee, and that the defendants’ activities had endangered national security and they “must be severely punished.”

‘Grim Milestone’

A mitigation hearing is scheduled to begin on Aug. 29, after which the court will proceed to sentencing.

According to a judgment issued on Aug. 21, the case centered on the alliance’s key demand of putting an end to “one-party dictatorship” in China. Prosecutors argued that the alliance and its leaders had intended to incite the public to “undermine” or “overthrow” the Chinese Communist Party.

Chow, a barrister who defends herself, and Lee, a former Hong Kong lawmaker, have denied all charges.

Responding to the verdict, Lee’s wife, Elizabeth Tang Yin-ngor, told reporters outside the court that she was angry.

“I feel it’s unfair,” Tang said, adding that she would talk to her husband before deciding whether to appeal.

Chow’s mother, Chow Lau Wah-chun, left the court accompanied by a former alliance member. She said she hoped that the “environment could be healthier” and that “flowers and plants of any color can bloom.”

International human rights groups called for the defendants’ release.

Amnesty International’s Hong Kong spokesperson Fernando Cheung said the decision marked “another grim milestone” in the government’s campaign to erase the legacy of Tiananmen vigils.

Sarah Brooks, deputy regional director at Amnesty International, called Chow and Lee “prisoners of conscience who should never have been prosecuted in the first place.”

Elaine Pearson, Human Rights Watch’s Asia director, said the targeted Hong Kong activists exposed the Chinese regime’s “fears of the memory of its own atrocities.” She called on governments around the world to “stand up for Hong Kongers being punished for holding Beijing to account.”

A day before the trial, Chow recounted being escorted into the courtroom by Hong Kong’s Correctional Services Department staff: shackled in handcuffs, leg irons, waist chains, and ankle chains. She described feeling “much like a dog on a lead,” and had to hunch her shoulders to avoid the handcuffs getting stuck in the wrist bones too much.

That ordeal, she said, only strengthened her resolve to resist.

“Justice lies in the hearts of the people,” she wrote in a Patreon post on Aug. 20. “A single ruling cannot be all that big a deal.”