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Hong Kong: Three former members of a Hong Kong group that organised annual vigils to mark China’s 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, were found guilty on Saturday of not complying with a national security police request for information.
Chow Hang-tung, 38, a prominent Hong Kong pro-democracy activist and former vice-chairperson of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, was among those convicted by the magistrate court.
how Hang-tung, vice chairwoman of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China.Credit:AP
Two other former standing committee members of the Alliance, Tang Ngok Kwan and Tsui Hon Kwong, were also found guilty.
The now-disbanded Alliance was the main organiser of Hong Kong’s June 4 candlelight vigil for victims of China’s Tiananmen Square crackdown. Every year it drew tens of thousands of people in the largest public commemoration of its kind on Chinese soil.
Since Hong Kong’s massive pro-democracy protests in 2019, authorities have not allowed the vigil to take place on COVID related grounds. The Alliance disbanded in September 2021 after authorities arrested several senior members of the group, including Chow.
During the trial that only kicked off late last year more than a year after the defendants were arrested, the Alliance was accused by government prosecutor Ivan Cheung of being a “foreign agent” for an unnamed group, after allegedly receiving $HK20,000 ($3,776) from it.
lice officers stand guard at the Causeway Bay area outside Victoria Park, the traditional site of the annual Tiananmen candlelight vigil in June 2022.Credit:Bloomberg
Chow, however, denied this in court, saying the Alliance was an independent civil society group run by Hong Kongers, and that the case against her and the others amounted to “political persecution”.
“The existence of an independent organisation like us that can check power, is essential to the security of a nation, not a threat,” she told the court.