Hong Kong court sentences three Tiananmen activists to up to 7 years under security law

A Hong Kong court on Friday handed down sentences ranging from five to seven years against three pro-democracy activists whose only documented crime was organizing annual candlelit vigils to remember the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown. Lee Cheuk-yan, 69, and Chow Hang-tung, 41, each received seven years—Chow's sentence extended to seven years and three months. Albert Ho, 74, who pleaded guilty, received five years and two months. All three had worked with the Hong Kong Alliance, a now-defunct organization that for decades held remembrance gatherings in Victoria Park, drawing thousands of people who wanted to mark an event the Chinese government has worked to erase from public memory.

The convictions came down in August under charges of "incitement to subversion," a provision of Hong Kong's national security law imposed by Beijing in 2020 following mass pro-democracy protests the year before. The court found that the alliance's stated goal of ending "one-party dictatorship" constituted a challenge to Communist Party rule in the territory. The organization itself was fined HK$1.5 million—roughly $191,000. Lee and Chow had denied the charges throughout the proceedings, arguing that their work fell squarely within Hong Kong's historical protections for free speech and assembly. The court rejected that defense entirely, finding that the defendants could not claim ignorance of the law's reach, regardless of what freedoms Hong Kong had once enjoyed.

Chow, a barrister who represented herself in court, raised both arms and waved to supporters as guards led her away. Her mother, Medina Chow, addressed the crowd afterward with a message that seemed aimed at preventing despair: the verdict should not crush hope, she said, and supporters should not feel guilt for what had happened. The statement carried weight precisely because it acknowledged what many in Hong Kong were feeling—a sense of loss, of doors closing, of space for dissent shrinking in real time.

The vigils that these three had helped sustain have been effectively banned under the security law. What was once a major annual event in Hong Kong's civic calendar—a rare moment when the city gathered to acknowledge a historical trauma that mainland China treats as unspeakable—no longer happens. The law has made it too dangerous. The court's reasoning made clear that even peaceful commemoration, even the act of gathering to remember, could be prosecuted as subversion if the gathering implied criticism of Beijing's political system.

The sentences have drawn swift condemnation from international human rights organizations and foreign governments. Amnesty International's deputy regional director, Sarah Brooks, called the outcome "a triple tragedy"—for the activists facing unjust punishment, for survivors and victims of Tiananmen itself who are denied space to process what happened to them, and for generations of Hong Kong residents cut off from discussing one of the most consequential events in modern Chinese history. Germany and France, which had condemned the verdict against Chow in advance, noted that peaceful human rights advocacy should never be treated as criminal. Chow had received the Franco-German Human Rights Award in 2023, a recognition that now sits alongside her prison sentence.

The three are not alone. The security law has ensnared other prominent figures: former media tycoon Jimmy Lai and former student leader Joshua Wong have also been arrested under its provisions. Each case narrows the space further, each conviction sends a message about what kinds of speech and assembly are now forbidden. What remains unclear is whether international pressure will have any effect on enforcement, or whether Hong Kong's legal system will continue to operate as an instrument for suppressing dissent under the framework Beijing has constructed.