Three former leaders of the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China have been sentenced to up to seven years and three months in prison under Hong Kong’s national security law for inciting subversion, after calling for an end to “one-party dictatorship” in mainland China.
Three High Court judges on Friday also imposed a HK$1.5 million fine on the alliance, bringing the high-profile trial at West Kowloon Court to a close.
Former chairman Lee Cheuk-yan and former vice-chairwoman Chow Hang-tung were convicted after the judges found that they had incited public hatred towards the party by likening Beijing’s 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters to local authorities’ suppression of the 2019 anti-government protests.
Lee was sentenced to seven years in prison, while Chow received a sentence of seven years and three months.
Former vice-chairman Albert Ho Chun-yan, who pleaded guilty before the trial began, was sentenced to five years and two months.
The sentences mark the conclusion of a case centred on an organisation that for decades played a prominent role in commemorating the 1989 crackdown. Set up after the events of that year, the alliance organised annual candlelight vigils in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park to commemorate the crackdown and call for accountability and democratic reforms across the border.
For years, the gathering drew thousands of people and occupied a distinctive place in Hong Kong’s public life. It had also been the only large-scale commemoration of the crackdown held on Chinese soil, according to the supplied account.
That tradition came to an end after Hong Kong authorities prohibited the vigil in 2020, citing public health grounds related to the Covid-19 pandemic. The 2021 event was banned on similar grounds. The alliance subsequently disbanded in September that year.
The organisation’s dissolution followed a period in which the annual vigil, once a major public commemoration, could no longer take place. Its former leaders later faced prosecution under Hong Kong’s national security law, which provides for severe penalties for offences involving inciting subversion.
The case has therefore brought both the individual defendants and the organisation they once led under the scope of the law. The sentences handed to Lee, Chow and Ho, together with the HK$1.5 million fine imposed on the alliance, represent the final outcome of the high-profile proceedings at West Kowloon Court.
Under Hong Kong’s national security law, inciting subversion carries a maximum sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment. The legislation also allows an unlimited fine to be imposed on a company or organisation convicted of an offence under the law.
The prosecution of the former vigil organisers follows the effective end of an annual commemoration that had continued in Hong Kong since the aftermath of the 1989 crackdown. What was once a large public gathering in Victoria Park has now been replaced by a legal case that has resulted in lengthy prison sentences for its former organisers and a substantial financial penalty for the disbanded alliance.
