Hong Kong court convicts 3 members of Tiananmen vigil group for security offence
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
The magistrates’ court verdict included prominent Hong Kong pro-democracy activist and barrister Chow Hang Tung.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Follow topic:
HONG KONG – Three former members of a Hong Kong group that organised annual vigils to mark China’s 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown were found guilty on Saturday of not complying with a national security police request for information.
Prominent Hong Kong pro-democracy activist and barrister Chow Hang Tung, 38, was among those convicted by the magistrate court. Chow is a former vice-chairman of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China.
Two other former standing committee members of the alliance, Tang Ngok Kwan and Tsui Hon Kwong, were also found guilty.
The now-disbanded alliance was the main organiser of Hong Kong’s June 4 candlelight vigil for victims of China’s Tiananmen Square crackdown.
Every year, the vigil drew tens of thousands of people in the largest public commemoration of its kind on Chinese soil. Since Hong Kong’s massive pro-democracy protests in 2019, the authorities have not allowed the vigil to take place on Covid-19-related grounds.
The alliance disbanded in September 2021 after the authorities arrested several senior members of the group, including Chow.
During the trial, which kicked off only late last year, more than a year after the defendants were arrested, the alliance was accused by government prosecutor Ivan Cheung of being a “foreign agent” for an unnamed group, after allegedly receiving HK$20,000 (S$3,420) from it.
Chow, however, denied this in court, saying the alliance was an independent civil society group run by Hong Kongers, and that the case against her and the others amounted to “political persecution”.
“The existence of an independent organisation like us that can check power is essential to the security of a nation, not a threat,” she told the court.
Magistrate Peter Law, who was hand-picked to hear national security cases by Hong Kong’s Beijing-backed leader, said in a written judgment that it was necessary for the police to “ascertain the background” of the group given its political activities and “nexus of interactions with local and non-local organisations and people”.
Sentencing is expected on March 11, with a maximum jail term of six months for this particular offence.
Chow is already serving two other prison terms for unlawful assembly linked to her involvement in organising Tiananmen commemoration events, and faces a separate, graver charge of subverting state power through the alliance.
Some key details of the case, including the overseas organisations and individuals alleged to have ties to the alliance, were kept confidential after the prosecutor applied for “public interest immunity”, arguing that these disclosures would harm public interest.
Hong Kong’s national security law,
