Hong Kong’s High Court on Friday found two former leaders of a disbanded organization guilty. The organization held annual protests commemorating the suppression of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing against pro-democracy supporters, UNN writes, citing Reuters.
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Such public events, which were previously legal in Chinese-administered Hong Kong, were considered a symbol of the relative freedom of this Asian financial center compared with mainland China.
Lee Cheuk-yan, 69, and Chow Hang-tung, 41, were charged with "incitement to subvert state power," an offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison under the National Security Law (NSL) enacted by China.
They were, respectively, the former chair and former vice chair of the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China.
The ruling, issued by three government-approved national security judges, states that the violation of the NSL consisted of the defendants’ repeated, though peaceful, use of the phrase "end the one-party dictatorship," rather than any other political actions or beliefs.
The defendants "intended to undermine confidence in the CCP by fomenting hatred and causing division in order to achieve the objective of subverting the fundamental system," the judges said in a 16-page ruling, referring to China’s ruling Communist Party.
"Even though they believed and assumed that acts of resistance would not necessarily involve the use of violence or the threat of violence, these actions would violate the National Security Law and create a risk of lengthy imprisonment," the document said.
The National Security Law (NSL) was enacted in 2020, significantly expanding the powers of both the Chinese and Hong Kong governments in Hong Kong after several months of sometimes violent pro-democracy protests rocked the Asian financial center in 2019.
Another former chair of the organization, as well as the former chair of the city’s largest opposition Democratic Party, Albert Ho, 74, pleaded guilty to the same charge.
For decades, the Alliance held annual events in Hong Kong commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square events in Beijing, until the enactment of the 2020 national security law.
Lee and Ho have been in custody since 2021. Hearings on mitigation of their sentences are scheduled to begin later this month.
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