Hong Kong Court Convicts Two Tiananmen Vigil Leaders of Inciting Subversion, Five Years After Their Arrest

A Hong Kong court convicted two longtime pro-democracy activists Friday of inciting subversion, closing out a trial that put the simple act of mourning the dead on trial for national security crimes.

Lee Cheuk-yan, 69, and Chow Hang-tung, 41, former leaders of the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, were found guilty at West Kowloon Court, according to CNN and the Associated Press. The alliance itself was also convicted. A third leader, Albert Ho, pleaded guilty in January and is awaiting sentencing.

The charges trace back to 2021, meaning Lee and Chow have already spent close to five years behind bars awaiting this verdict, according to the South China Morning Post. They face up to 10 years in prison each. Sentencing has not been scheduled.

What the Alliance actually did

For three decades, the Hong Kong Alliance organized the only large-scale public vigil on Chinese soil commemorating the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, when the Chinese Communist Party sent tanks and troops to crush student-led protests in Beijing. No government has ever released an official death toll. Estimates range from several hundred to several thousand, according to CNN.

Tens of thousands of people packed Hong Kong's Victoria Park every year to light candles for the dead. That ended in 2020, officially banned under COVID-19 gathering restrictions, weeks before Beijing imposed its national security law on the city.

Three High Court judges, hand-picked to hear national security cases, ruled that the Alliance's stated goal of ending "one-party dictatorship" in mainland China amounted to incitement to overthrow the Communist Party's leadership, according to the South China Morning Post. Prosecutors leaned on Article 1 of China's constitution, which enshrines Communist Party rule, arguing that advocating its end is itself an act against the state.

The defense: this was about democracy, not overthrow

Lee told the court the Alliance never called for ending Communist Party leadership outright, but for a transition toward democracy where people choose their own leaders, according to the Associated Press. Chow, a barrister who represented herself throughout the 24-day trial, argued that "ending one-party rule" meant ending unchecked, unrestrained power, not violent overthrow.

Prosecutors treated a political slogan calling for democratic reform as a literal blueprint for subversion. The court sided with prosecutors. The judges have not yet released their full written reasoning, saying it will be published online later, per the Associated Press.

Chow described her treatment in custody in a Patreon post published the day before the verdict, saying she was moved to court in handcuffs and waist and ankle chains, "like a dog," according to the Associated Press. She wrote that "justice lives in the hearts of the people" and that "one verdict doesn't matter much."

Where the sides land

Amnesty International's Sarah Brooks said the case "relies on vague, overly broad and arbitrary definitions of 'subversion'" and amounts to "punishing those who refuse to forget the victims of the Tiananmen crackdown," according to Breitbart and the Guardian. Eric Lai of Georgetown University's Center for Asian Law said the subversion charge mirrors tactics used against mainland dissidents like the late Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo, and shows how far Hong Kong's courts have drifted toward mainland-style justice, per the Associated Press.

The Hong Kong government pushed back hard. A spokesperson told CNN ahead of the verdict that the government "strongly condemns any biased remarks and smears" against its national security efforts, insisting rights and freedoms remain protected under the law. Prosecutors maintained throughout the trial that the case was not political, and was narrowly about whether the Alliance's calls to "end one-party rule" crossed into incitement of unlawful acts against the state, not a referendum on free expression broadly.

A sovereign government has the authority to define what counts as subversion within its own constitutional order, Beijing's argument holds. A group explicitly organizing around ending the ruling party's constitutionally-enshrined leadership is, by that logic, organizing against the state itself. Whether that argument survives scrutiny depends entirely on whether you think peaceful advocacy for regime change through the ballot box is a crime or a basic democratic right. Hong Kong's courts, now staffed with judges vetted for national security cases, have decided it is a crime.

What happens now

Lee and Chow await sentencing, with a maximum exposure of 10 years each layered on top of the nearly five years they have already spent in custody. Albert Ho remains in custody awaiting his own sentencing after pleading guilty. The full written judgment explaining the court's reasoning has not yet been published.

Xi Jinping gave a rare public speech defending the Communist Party's original 1989 crackdown decision just days before this verdict came down, according to CNN. Thirty-seven years later, Beijing still isn't interested in letting anyone else tell that story differently.