On Thursday, Hong Kong’s High Court opened a landmark national security trial against three former leaders of a disbanded group that had organised annual vigils commemorating Beijing’s 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators.
Once legal in China-ruled Hong Kong, such public commemorations were hailed as a symbol of the Asian financial hub’s relative freedom, compared to mainland China.
The events on June 4, 1989, when Chinese troops opened fire to end student-led protests, are not publicly discussed in China, which treats the date as taboo and allows no public remembrance.
Blocked in 2020 over COVID-19 curbs, the Hong Kong memorials have never resumed since China imposed a tough national security law that year. Several June 4 monuments, such as the “pillar of shame”, have also been removed from the city’s universities.
Under that law, Lee Cheuk-yan, 68, Albert Ho, 74, and Chow Hang-tung, 40, three former leaders of the group, now face charges of “inciting subversion of state power” that carry punishments of up to 10 years in jail.
Chow and Lee, one of the city’s veteran democratic leaders, pleaded not guilty, while Ho, also a former chairman of the city’s largest opposition Democratic Party, pleaded guilty.
The trial is among the last of several such major cases, with Chow, the former vice chair of the group, held on remand for more than 1,500 days after being denied bail.
Subverting State Power A Key Question In Trial
In an opening statement, prosecutors said the case centred on whether the Alliance’s publicly stated goal of “ending one‑party rule” constituted illegally inciting others to carry out acts aimed at subverting state power.
The other key focus of the case was whether such acts amounted to “overthrowing or undermining” China’s system of government, they added.
In the past, the Alliance has said it hoped to see a democratic China and was not aiming to destroy the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) but to see it contest free elections.
Rights groups and some foreign governments have criticised such national security cases against prominent democrats as a weaponisation of the rule of law to silence dissent.
Beijing says Hong Kong’s national security law was necessary to restore order after sometimes violent protests rocked the former British colony for months in 2019.
Detained since September 2021, Chow, a Cambridge-educated barrister, is one of the few democratic campaigners still speaking out against the Chinese Communist Party’s crackdown.
She has represented herself in court and challenged prison rules.
Last November, the High Court rejected Chow’s bid to terminate the trial.
(With input from Reuters)
