Organizers of Hong Kong’s Tiananmen vigils sentenced to up to 7 years and 3 months in national security case

HONG KONG — Three pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong who organized annual vigils for victims of China’s 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown were sentenced to prison terms between 5 and over 7 years Friday after being convicted under a national security law that critics say has stifled dissent in the Chinese territory.

Lee Cheuk-yan was sentenced to seven years in prison, while Chow Hang-tung was sentenced to seven years and three months. Both had pleaded not guilty to charges of inciting subversion under the Beijing-imposed law.

A third defendant, Albert Ho, 74, was sentenced to five years and two months after pleading guilty, which can result in a shorter sentence.

Both Lee and Chow, who have been in custody continuously since they were charged five years ago, had pleaded for reduced sentences after the verdict. They had faced a maximum of 10 years in prison.

All three were leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, which for three decades held annual candlelight vigils in honor of those who were killed on June 4, 1989, in a Chinese military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in and around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. The vigils, which drew tens of thousands of people a year, were the only large-scale public commemoration on Chinese soil of the Tiananmen crackdown, discussion of which is heavily censored in mainland China.

The alliance was also convicted in the case. The trial, which began in January, was heard by three government-appointed judges who ruled last month that the alliance’s longtime call to “end one-party dictatorship” in China was an unlawful form of incitement to overthrow the country’s ruling Communist Party.

The United States, along with many other Western governments and the United Nations, condemned the Aug. 21 verdict as a further sign of Hong Kong’s deteriorating freedom of expression. The Tiananmen vigils “sought only to remember the past and honor the lives lost in that assault,” Assistant Secretary of State Riley Barnes said in a post on X.

During the trial, Lee, 69, a former lawmaker, told the court that the alliance was not calling to eliminate the Communist Party, but rather to allow the Chinese public to decide who governs them through free and fair elections.

The judges said the defendants were not being tried over their political views.

Chow, 41, a barrister who represented herself in court, said in her mitigation statement that the 206-page verdict “boils down to saying that pursuing democracy is a crime.”

“Believing that dictatorship is wrong and democracy is right — if that isn’t a belief, then what is?” she said.

Chow added that she had “no regrets” about her activism, saying she “would rather be a criminal than a person who betrays their conscience.”

Hong Kong, a former British colony, returned to Chinese rule in 1997 with the promise that its civil liberties would be preserved for at least 50 years. But residents of the once-freewheeling city have seen their freedoms significantly eroded since Beijing imposed a controversial 2020 national security law, which has also been used to jail other pro-democracy activists such as former media tycoon Jimmy Lai.