Hong Kong’s Tiananmen vigil fell dark years ago. Now its organizers have been convicted

By Chris Lau, CNN

Hong Kong (CNN) — Two key organizers behind what used to be the only large-scale public commemoration for the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre on Chinese soil have been found guilty of inciting subversion by a court in Hong Kong.

The verdict is the latest chapter in a years-long crackdown by Hong Kong authorities against publicly marking the moment in 1989 when the ruling Chinese Communist Party sent tanks in to violently quell peaceful, student-led democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

Chow Hang-tung, a prominent young human rights lawyer who conducted her own defense, and former opposition lawmaker Lee Cheuk-yan were found guilty of inciting subversion at West Kowloon Court on Friday. They face a jail term of up to 10 years under a national security law imposed on the city by Beijing in 2020.

A third activist, veteran pro-democracy lawmaker Albert Ho, had previously pleaded guilty and will be sentenced later.

Hong Kong’s position as a once-outspoken corner of China has been upended in recent years by a national security crackdown following huge and often violent democracy protests that convulsed the city in 2019.

The erasure of the city’s annual candle-light Tiananmen vigil, which used to draw huge crowds calling for full democracy for Hong Kong and an end to one-party rule in China, is one of the most visible examples of that transformation.

Beijing and the Hong Kong government say the national security laws were needed to return the city to order and stability.

Critics, human rights groups and multiple Western nations – including the United States – say the crackdown has quashed dissent and ended Hong Kong’s unique freedoms.

“The HKSAR Government strongly condemns any biased remarks and smears against the HKSAR’s effort for safeguarding national security,” its spokesperson said in response to CNN’s inquiry ahead of the verdict, using Hong Kong’s official title, adding rights and freedoms are protected under the national security law.

Those convicted on Friday were key leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, the group responsible for organizing the annual remembrance until 2019.

It came just days after Chinese leader Xi Jinping praised the decision to clamp down on the Tiananmen protests, in a speech that made a rare mention of the tumultuous period.

Chinese troops cracked down on pro-democracy protesters around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. No official death toll has ever been released, but estimates range from several hundred to thousands, with many more injured. The subject remains widely censored inside China.

Following the events of 1989, mourners would converge on the same day every year in Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay district, to attend a vigil that filled multiple soccer pitches in the neighborhood’s Victoria Park with candlelight.

It was a tradition that continued after Hong Kong’s 1997 handover by Britain to China, alongside frequent street protests and a political system that allowed pro-democracy lawmakers to stand.

That tradition came to an end with the imposition of a series of new national security offenses following the 2019 protests.

Free speech vs prohibited speech

Security was ramped up outside the courthouse on Friday with police checking the identities of many of those lining up to attend, and searching their bags.

Tang Ngok-kwan, a former member of the alliance that organized the vigils, told reporters that police barred him from entering the court building because he refused to give up copies of past news reports about the crackdown.

Another supporter, Margaret Chan, called the case “absurd.”

“Patriotism is in the alliance’s name. We all love our nation. What does it incite people for? To love their country?” she said.

During the trial itself prosecutors said the trio’s alliance incited subversion by calling for an end to “one-party dictatorship.” They argued the calls were aimed at unlawfully trying to topple China’s fundamental system and central political bodies.

By continuing to advocate for the ousting of the Chinese Communist Party after the national security law came into effect, prosecutors said, the alliance’s act amounted to subversion, adding that the group was also behind a host of events that fostered public hatred toward Beijing, including the annual vigil.

The defense denied the suggestion they meant to topple the party, and argued their campaign was about moving toward democracy and urging the party not to enforce a “dictatorship.” They also argued the alliance had not asked people to adopt any illegal means and promoted peaceful protest.

Chow, a trial lawyer by trade, led her own defense during the court case which – like all of Hong Kong’s national security cases – was heard by a panel of three judges selected to oversee such proceedings and not a jury.

“Speaking the truth has become inciting hatred, seeking justice has become exploiting suffering, limiting power has become violating the constitution, and returning power to the people has become subverting the state,” she said during the trial, the Associated Press reported.

The judges ruled that the alliance’s leaders had been actively “advocating and performing activities” that intended to “overthrow” and “undermine” the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Their agenda breached the Chinese constitution and was “unlawful” despite the absence of any use or threat of violence, they wrote in the judgment.

The leaders “had all along been hostile towards the CCP and the central government under its leadership,” they added.

After the guilty verdict was handed down, Chow blew supporters in the public gallery a kiss, while Lee formed a heart with his arms.

A city transformed

Both Lee and Chow have been kept in pre-trial custody since their arrest in late 2021, a practice that has become commonplace for national security arrests, where bail is harder to achieve.

Chow, Lee and Ho were prominent figures within Hong Kong’s now-defunct democracy movement, which has seen most of its leaders either jailed, fled overseas or fallen silent.

Chow, now 41, studied science at Cambridge University in Britain, before returning to Hong Kong to advocate for labor rights and later joined the alliance Ho and Lee were involved in founding.

She also sought a second career as a barrister after being inspired by some mainland Chinese workers she was commissioned to help, according to a past interview with Reuters.

Lee was a veteran unionist spending his career fighting to improve workers’ conditions while Ho, a lawyer by profession, was a founding member of the city’s biggest opposition Democratic Party, which was disbanded in late 2025.

Zhou Fengsuo, a former student leader at the Tiananmen Square protests who now has US citizenship, told CNN the verdict showed “how profoundly Hong Kong has changed.”

“Authorities can extinguish the candles in Victoria Park, but they cannot extinguish the memory of June 4,” he added.

This story has been updated throughout.

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