Hong Kong’s Tiananmen vigil organizers handed lengthy prison terms

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Three key organizers behind what used to be the only large-scale public commemoration for the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre on Chinese soil will spend years in prison for inciting subversion in Hong Kong after judges handed down their sentence on Friday.

Their imprisonment is the latest chapter in Beijing’s yearslong national security crackdown in Hong Kong underscoring the risks that now exist in the once outspoken city in commemorating the victims of a bloody event Chinese officials have spent decades trying to erase.

The trio were key figures from a group that organized an annual vigil in Hong Kong that marked the moments when the ruling Chinese Communist Party sent in tanks to violently quell peaceful, student-led democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

The yearly gathering was a symbolic ritual that drew huge crowds and starkly differentiated the financial hub from the rest of mainland China.

On Friday, West Kowloon Court sentenced Chow Hang-tung, a prominent young human rights lawyer to seven years and three months in prison, and former opposition lawmaker Lee Cheuk-yan to seven years in prison. They were found guilty last month .

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A third activist, veteran pro-democracy lawmaker Albert Ho - who pleaded guilty for a lighter sentence, an increasingly common strategy for those facing national security charges - received a five years and two months prison term.

The group that used to organize the vigil - the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China - was also fined HK$1.5 million ($191,300).

Before Friday’s sentencing, Chow posted a statement on her Patreon page saying her guilty verdict declared that “pursuing democracy is a crime.”

“If doing so makes me a criminal for life – if the law truly cannot accommodate our beliefs – then I would rather be a criminal than a person who betrays their conscience,” she wrote.

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

The erasure of the city’s annual candle-light Tiananmen vigil is one of the most visible examples of the ensuing crackdown, which critics, human rights groups and multiple Western nations – including the United States – say has quashed dissent and ended the city’s unique freedoms.

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

“The HKSAR Government strongly condemns any biased remarks and smears against the HKSAR’s effort for safeguarding national security,” a government spokesperson said in response to a CNN inquiry when the trio were first convicted, using Hong Kong’s official title, adding rights and freedoms are protected under the national security law.

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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, calling for greater democracy for China.

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 in 2020, with civil groups disbanded, some independent media outlets forced to shut down, and most activists jailed or living in exile.

But prosecutors said, and judges agreed, that the campaigns by the vigil organizers - including calls for an end to “one-party dictatorship” - amounted to an incitement to subversion.

Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee - a former security chief - welcomed the verdict. “Their conspiracy was abundantly clear, which must be brought to justice,” he said last month.

But human rights groups and multiple foreign nations - including the United States - condemned their conviction.

Retiree Simon Ng, who had attended the Tiananmen vigils for decades, said he came to court on Friday with with a heavy heart, because a peaceful act of speech had now been made illegal.

“Hundreds of thousands of people had attended them in the past. This is an accusation against all of them,” he told CNN.

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.

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1989 年天安门事件在中国境内唯一大规模公众纪念活动的幕后三名主要组织者，因在香港煽动颠覆国家政权罪，于周五被法官宣判，将被判处多年监禁。

他们的监禁是北京多年来在香港进行国家安全镇压的最新篇章，凸显了这座曾经直言不讳的城市如今在纪念一场血腥事件的受害者时所面临的风险，而中国官员几十年来一直试图抹去这场事件。

这三人是香港一个年度守夜活动的组织的关键人物，该活动旨在纪念中国共产党派遣坦克暴力镇压北京天安门广场上由学生领导的和平民主抗议活动的时刻。

一年一度的聚会是一项象征性的仪式，吸引了大量人群，使这个金融中心与中国大陆其他地区形成了鲜明的对比。

周五，西九龙法院判处著名青年人权律师周恒东七年零三个月监禁，以及前反对派立法会议员李卓人七年监禁。他们上个月被判有罪。

梁文熙/法新社/盖蒂图片社

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第三名活动人士，资深民主派立法会议员何鸿燊（他认罪以求较轻的刑罚，这是面临国家安全指控的人越来越常见的策略），被判处五年零两个月监禁。

曾经组织守夜活动的团体——香港支援中国爱国民主运动联盟——也被罚款150万港元（191300美元）。

在周五宣判之前，周女士在她的 Patreon 页面上发表声明称，她的有罪判决表明“追求民主是一种犯罪”。

她写道：“如果这样做会让我终身成为罪犯——如果法律真的不能容纳我们的信仰——那么我宁愿成为罪犯，也不愿成为背叛良心的人。”

香港曾经是中国一个敢于直言的角落，但近年来，北京在2019年香港爆发大规模且往往伴有暴力冲突的民主抗议活动后，强加了一项国家安全法，香港的地位也因此发生了翻天覆地的变化。

取消一年一度的天安门烛光守夜活动是随后镇压行动最明显的例子之一。批评人士、人权组织和包括美国在内的多个西方国家表示，这场镇压行动扼杀了异议，终结了这座城市独特的自由。

北京和香港政府表示，国家安全法是恢复香港秩序和稳定的必要措施。

香港特区政府发言人在三人首次被定罪时，就 CNN 的询问作出回应，称“香港特区政府强烈谴责任何针对香港特区维护国家安全努力的偏颇言论和抹黑”，并补充说，根据国家安全法，公民的权利和自由受到保护。

曾亚瑟/路透社

1989年6月4日，中国军队在北京天安门广场附近镇压了支持民主的示威者。官方从未公布死亡人数，但估计从数百人到数千人不等，另有更多人受伤。在中国，这一事件至今仍是严格审查的话题。

1989 年事件发生后，每年同一天，哀悼者都会聚集在香港铜锣湾区，参加守夜活动。维多利亚公园的多个足球场上都摆满了烛光，人们呼吁中国实现更大的民主。

在香港于 1997 年由英国移交中国后，这一传统得以延续，同时伴随着频繁的街头抗议和允许亲民主派立法者参选的政治制度。

这一传统随着 2020 年一系列新的国家安全罪行的实施而终结，民间团体被解散，一些独立媒体被迫关闭，大多数活动人士被监禁或流亡海外。

但检察官表示，法官也同意，守夜活动组织者发起的运动——包括呼吁结束“一党专政”——构成煽动颠覆罪。

香港行政长官李显龙（曾任保安局局长）对判决表示欢迎。他上个月说：“他们的阴谋昭然若揭，必须绳之以法。”

但人权组织和包括美国在内的多个外国谴责了对他们的定罪。

退休人士吴思远（Simon Ng）几十年来一直参加天安门守夜活动，他说他周五怀着沉重的心情来到法庭，因为和平的言论行为现在被定为非法。

“过去曾有数十万人参加过这些活动。这是对他们所有人的指控，”他告诉CNN。

曾是天安门广场抗议活动学生领袖、现已获得美国国籍的周锋锁告诉 CNN，这一判决表明“香港已经发生了多么深刻的变化”。

“当局可以熄灭维多利亚公园的蜡烛，但他们无法抹去人们对6月4日的记忆，”他补充道。