Hong Kong’s top court restores activist’s conviction over banned vigil on Tiananmen crackdown

By KANIS LEUNG
Associated Press

HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong’s top court has restored a prominent detained activist’s conviction over a banned vigil commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, marking the latest setback for the city’s democracy supporters. Chow Hang-tung, a former leader of the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, had been sentenced to 15 months in prison in 2022 for inciting others to take part in the vigil banned by the police during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the same year, Chow won her appeal against her conviction. But Justice Roberto Ribeiro of the Court of Final Appeal said in a written judgement the police’s ban was a “plainly a proportionate and legitimate measure.”