Two former organizers of Hong Kong’s annual candlelight vigils, which remembered the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, were convicted today by government-appointed judges. The court found Lee Cheuk-yan and Chow Hang-tung guilty of inciting subversion under the city’s national security law.
Prosecutors argued that the alliance’s slogan calling to end one-party dictatorship was equivalent to inciting the overthrow of the Chinese Communist Party. The judges ruled that the group continued this advocacy after the security law was introduced in 2020. This conviction marks another milestone in the dismantling of the city’s long-standing pro-democracy movement.
For decades, Hong Kong hosted the only large-scale public commemorations of the 1989 events on Chinese soil. These vigils brought together tens of thousands of people in Victoria Park to honor those killed during the military intervention in Beijing. Since the introduction of the security law, authorities have banned these gatherings and dismantled the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China.
The court rejected arguments that the defendants were merely exercising political expression. Instead, the judges determined that the group intended to wait for an opportunity to undermine the current constitutional order. Both defendants face up to 10 years in prison. They will be sentenced at a later date, following further legal arguments next week.