A Hong Kong court sentenced two pro-democracy activists to seven years in prison on Friday, after they were convicted for inciting subversion, with judges highlighting their use of the phrase "end one-party dictatorship" in their political activities.
Lee Cheuk-yan, Chow Hang-tung and Albert Ho are three prominent Hong Kong activists who led the group behind the city’s massive annual vigils commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.
The three former leaders of the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China are set to be sentenced Friday over their convictions for inciting subversion under a Beijing-imposed national security law. Lee and Chow pleaded not guilty, while Ho entered a guilty plea. Pleading guilty typically can reduce a sentence.
Critics say their case symbolizes the erosion of freedoms in the city. But the government said the alliance has long planted seeds of hatred against the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
Here’s a brief look at the three activists:
Lee Cheuk-yan
Lee, 69, was the former chair of the Hong Kong Alliance.
During the 1989 student-led Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement, he brought donations from Hong Kongers to Beijing in late May. When troops and tanks entered the heart of Beijing and opened fire to end the protests in June, he was at a hotel that night hearing the gunshots, he said in his testimony in court. The crackdown killed hundreds, possibly thousands.
Lee boarded a plane to return to Hong Kong after the crackdown but was asked to leave the plane by police before it took off. He was detained and later allowed to go back to Hong Kong on June 8 after being questioned and signing a letter of repentance, he said.
His experience made him devote himself to letting the world know about what happened in 1989. Beyond his Tiananmen activism, he was a former lawmaker and a labor activist.
In August, the judges ruled that Lee and his co-defendants had long held enmity toward the party.
But during the trial, Lee denied that, saying his desire to see it reform stemmed from his love for the people.
“I have no enmity in my heart, only love,” he said.
Albert Ho
Albert Ho, 74, was a vice-chair of the alliance with a career spanning politics and law.
During his roughly 20 years as a lawmaker, he urged Japan in 2000 to apologize for its wartime actions against China in World War II. He also backed China’s sovereignty claim over the Japanese-controlled islands in the East China Sea, known as the Senkakus in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese.
Ho was widely seen as a moderate politician. When he chaired Hong Kong’s largest now-disbanded pro-democracy party, he negotiated with mainland Chinese officials on the city’s political reform proposals in 2010.
As a rights lawyer, Ho helped Edward Snowden, a former U.S. National Security Agency contractor who leaked information about the scope of U.S. government surveillance, during Snowden's stay in Hong Kong in 2013. He also assisted Lam Wing-kee, a bookseller who in 2016 gave an explosive account of being held by Chinese authorities.
According to the prosecution, Ho said in a 2020 interview that he would persist in calls to end one-party dictatorship and build a democratic China, and that he hoped to pursue them within the law.
“If the law pushes us into a corner where there's nowhere to go and forces me to shut up, I am sorry I can't do that. I would rather bear the legal consequences,” he was quoted as saying.
Chow Hang-tung
Chow, 41, began going to the vigils when she was just a primary school student. A natural sciences graduate of the University of Cambridge, she later studied law and became a vice-chair of the alliance.
Before the alliance voted to dissolve in September 2021, police had sought details about its operations and finances, accusing the group of being a foreign agent. But the group refused to cooperate, insisting it was not.
Chow, alongside two other core members of the group, was convicted in 2023 over their refusal and received a sentence of 4 1/2 months each. But last year, their convictions were overturned at the city’s top court.
Behind bars, Chow launched hunger strikes on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. Despite limited resources in prison, she represented herself in the national security trial and stood firm in her defense.
The verdict in August said Chow was “a living example” that illustrated the potential impact of the alliance’s statements and activities on its participants.
After the conviction, she argued in court that the verdict suggested that pursuing democracy is a crime, and insisted she did not deserve even one day in prison.
“If the law truly has no room for our beliefs, then I would rather be a criminal than be a fake person,” she said.
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