In a Hong Kong courtroom on Friday, three activists—Lee Cheuk-yan, Chow Hang-tung, and Albert Ho—were sentenced to between five and seven-and-a-quarter years in prison for organizing candlelight vigils that once drew over 100,000 people to remember the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. For thirty years, Hong Kong had been the singular exception within Chinese territory: a place where that history could be publicly held. The national security law enacted in 2020 closed that exception, and these sentences mark the moment its closure became irreversible. What is on trial, in the deepest sense, is
Hong Kong sentences Tiananmen vigil organizers to up to 7 years under security law
Three activists imprisoned for 5-7.25 years; Hong Kong Alliance disbanded; public gatherings commemorating Tiananmen crackdown banned since 2020.