Sawt Falasteen - Hong Kong convicts Tiananmen vigil activists of inciting subversion

Lee Cheuk-yan, 69, and Chow Hang-tung, 41, "incited other persons to organise, plan, commit or participate in acts by unlawful means with a view to subverting the state power", said a press summary of the ruling.

The three-judge panel said they found both defendants had committed acts that constituted "overthrowing or undermining the basic system... established by the Constitution" of China.

They face a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail, with sentencing expected at a later date.

Lee and Chow were charged with "incitement to subversion" in 2021 and have been behind bars since, under a Beijing-imposed national security law.

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 calling for political reform in and around Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

Lee and Chow were leaders of the now defunct Hong Kong Alliance, the group that organised annual vigils in the city's Victoria Park.

But public commemoration has been effectively banned since Beijing imposed a national security law on Hong Kong in 2020, following huge and sometimes violent pro-democracy protests the year before.

The judges ruled that the Hong Kong Alliance leaders had breached the Chinese constitution in their calls to "end one-party dictatorship" after Beijing imposed the security law, even though their "unlawful" advocacy had been non-violent.

Lee and Chow had "intended to cause others to lose confidence" in the Chinese Communist Party, seeking to undermine the existing political system by "stirring up hostility and causing division", the court said.

A third defendant, 74-year-old former lawmaker Albert Ho, had pleaded guilty in January. A guilty plea typically results in a reduced sentence.

Lee and Chow sat silently in the dock as the judges returned their verdict on Friday. They had previously rejected the charge brought against them, arguing that the "democratic transition" they advocated does not exclude the Communist Party's leadership.

- Family 'furious' -

Judge Alex Lee said the court expects to hear their mitigation arguments next week.

Lee's wife Elizabeth Tang Yin-ngor, a former union leader, told reporters after verdict she felt "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.

"It is an indisputable threat that the Hong Kong Alliance has spent years planting seeds of hatred against the Chinese Communist Party and the central government among the Hong Kong people," Li said.

The group's leaders had used human rights "as a shield to organise a large-scale public event designed to inflame emotions", he added.

Taiwan, the self-ruled island Beijing claims is part of its territory, urged China to "stop political persecution".

The Mainland Affairs Council, Taipei's top China policy body, condemned the convictions in a statement and called on authorities to "immediately release those detained in this case".

- 'Chilling message' -

Rights group Amnesty International decried the "dismaying verdict".

The ruling "marks another grim milestone in the government's deliberate campaign" to erase the legacy of the Tiananmen vigil activists, said Amnesty spokesman Fernando Cheung.

The conviction showed "how public displays of mourning have become a crime in Hong Kong", Human Rights Watch's Asia director Elaine Pearson said in a statement.

"These activists exposed the Chinese government's fears of the memory of its own atrocities, which treats remembrance as a national security threat."

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 judgments handed down from above, and a single verdict is of little consequence".

The case has been widely criticised for exemplifying the erosion of freedom of expression in the city.

It "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", Urania Chiu, a law lecturer at Oxford Brookes University, told AFP.

A.Suleiman--SF-PST