In a Hong Kong courtroom, three aging democracy advocates — whose principal act was lighting candles to remember the dead — have been sentenced to years in prison for the crime of remembering. The national security law Beijing imposed on Hong Kong in 2020 has now been used to criminalize not just protest, but commemoration itself, closing off one of the last civic spaces where a forbidden history could be spoken aloud. What is being adjudicated here is not merely the fate of three individuals, but the question of whether a society can be legally compelled to forget.
Hong Kong court sentences three Tiananmen activists to up to 7 years under security law
Three activists detained and sentenced to 5-7 years imprisonment; Hong Kong Alliance fined HK$1.5 million; annual Tiananmen vigils effectively banned.