July verdict – A Hong Kong court finished final arguments in the national security trial of Chow Hang-tung and Lee Cheuk-yan, former leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China. The government-vetted judge, Alex Lee, said a verdict
On the 24th day of a trial that was first expected to run much longer, a Hong Kong courtroom heard the last exchanges in the national security case targeting two former leaders of the city’s Tiananmen vigil movement.
Judge Alex Lee, one of three government-vetted judges, said the court hopes to issue a verdict in July for Chow Hang-tung and Lee Cheuk-yan. The charges carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison if convicted. Chow and Lee pleaded not guilty in January.
For decades. the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China—now defunct—organized what prosecutors and the city’s critics alike described as the only large-scale public commemoration in China that drew tens of thousands of people each year. The vigil was banned in 2020 during the first year of the coronavirus pandemic.
Chow and Lee were charged in 2021 with inciting subversion under a Beijing-imposed national security law. Observers say the prosecution and the disappearance of the vigil symbolized the decline in freedoms promised by Beijing when Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997. The Hong Kong and Beijing governments have said the security law is crucial for stability in the city.
In court, the prosecution argued that the alliance’s work was not merely political advocacy. It focused on “ending one-party rule. ” one of the alliance’s core demands. and said that the group’s advocacy was aimed at inciting others to use unlawful means to overthrow the leadership of China’s ruling Communist Party.
Chow, who is a barrister and who defended herself, pushed back on the framing. She said the case was “a very strange case,” because the defendants neither denied anything they had done nor argued that what they said did not reflect their thoughts.
Her central argument turned on how the court should interpret “ending one-party rule.” Chow said it means ending a state where power is unrestricted. and she said a key question in the case is whether the law is truly safeguarding the Chinese Communist Party’s right to rule or whether it is instead banning people from pushing democratization forward.
Chow told the court that the standards for judging right and wrong have been flipped. “Speaking the truth has become inciting hatred. seeking justice has become exploiting suffering. limiting power has become violating the constitution. and returning power to the people has become subverting the state. ” she said.
She warned that if the court fails to “gatekeep over the reasonable effects” of the defendants’ statements, it could become an accomplice by tolerating crimes committed by those in power.
The prosecution, for its part, said that freedoms of speech, assembly and association aren’t absolute rights. It accused the defendants of trying to blur the focus through human rights arguments.
After hearing arguments from both sides, Lee said the judges can’t specify a verdict date, but hoped to have a decision between mid- and late July. The timeline has tightened. The trial, originally scheduled to last 75 days, moved faster than expected, with Tuesday marking the 24th day.
A third defendant, Albert Ho, entered a guilty plea when the trial began in January, which typically can lead to a sentence reduction.
The Tiananmen vigils being judged in this case were meant to mourn the victims who died in a student-led crackdown in 1989, when tanks rolled into the heart of Beijing and soldiers fired live rounds. Hundreds and possibly thousands of people were killed, including dozens of soldiers.
In Hong Kong, authorities banned the vigil in 2020, citing the COVID-19 pandemic. After COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, the former vigil site was occupied by a carnival organized by pro-Beijing groups. Some people who tried to commemorate the event near the site on June 4, the anniversary of the crackdown, were detained.
Now the court’s hope for a July verdict hangs over the case’s final statements—one that, for its supporters and critics alike, has become inseparable from the question of how far public commemoration and dissent can go under Hong Kong’s national security law.
Hong Kong national security law Tiananmen vigil Chow Hang-tung Lee Cheuk-yan Alex Lee July verdict one-party rule inciting subversion