Hong Kong Tiananmen activists found guilty of national security charges

What the report says

A Hong Kong court on Friday found pro-democracy activists Lee Cheuk-yan, 69, and Chow Hang-tung, 41, guilty of national security charges after a trial that Al Jazeera described as part of a broader tightening of political freedoms in the city. The pair, former leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, had pleaded not guilty to “incitement to subversion” over their role in organizing annual candlelight vigils commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. They were originally charged in 2021.

Prosecutors said the activists endangered national security by acting in the name of human rights. Sentencing will come later, and the two face potential prison terms of up to 10 years. Chow represented herself in court and argued earlier this year that the law itself was effectively on trial. Outside observers and rights groups framed the verdict as another sign of the shrinking space for dissent in Hong Kong.

The vigil once organized by the alliance was, for decades, the city’s largest public remembrance of Tiananmen, drawing large crowds before it was banned in 2020, ahead of Beijing’s sweeping national security law. Al Jazeera also noted that the alliance’s leaders have been detained since the charges were brought. Human rights advocates say the case matters because it touches on how Hong Kong handles memory, public assembly and speech tied to China’s 1989 crackdown.