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A Hong Kong court sentenced three former leaders of a now-disbanded pro-democracy group on Friday for inciting subversion through their organization of public events that included annual vigils marking the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. Lee Cheuk-yan received a seven-year term while vice-chair Chow Hang-tung was given seven years and three months after both were convicted last month. Albert Ho, who pleaded guilty in January, was sentenced to five years and two months, according to multiple reports from Reuters, The Guardian and The New York Times.
The court also imposed a fine of HK$1.5 million on the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, which must be paid within three months. Judges highlighted the group’s slogan calling for an end to one-party dictatorship as central to the incitement charge, determining that it undermined the Chinese Communist Party. A court summary from August stated that Lee and Chow had incited others to subvert state power through unlawful means, as detailed in BBC News coverage and a South China Morning Post dispatch.
Lee, 69, a longtime labor organizer, and Chow, 41, a human rights lawyer, had led the alliance that for decades drew crowds of more than 100,000 to Victoria Park for candlelight vigils, though police estimates were lower. The events had served as the only large-scale public commemoration of the Tiananmen crackdown on Chinese soil prior to the 2020 national security law, according to an assessment in Nikkei Asia. Ho, 74, a former Democratic Party chairman, had also chaired the alliance at different points.
The national security legislation, imposed directly by Beijing following the 2019 pro-democracy protests, criminalized secession, subversion, collusion with foreign forces and terrorism with penalties of up to life in prison. Public Authority for Civil Information data and rights monitoring groups indicate the law has resulted in more than 100 arrests of prominent activists, including media tycoon Jimmy Lai who received a 20-year term in a separate case earlier this year. The three defendants were charged in September 2021 and have been in custody since, with time served counting toward their sentences, Reuters reported.
The verdicts mark one of the final high-profile national security trials in the city, signaling a broader shift that has dismantled much of Hong Kong’s once-vibrant civil society, a pattern documented across The New York Times, Al Jazeera and CNN reporting. The alliance disbanded in 2021 amid the mounting legal pressures. Chow had told the court in May that the law itself was on trial while posting a statement on her Patreon page beforehand that pursuing democracy had been declared a crime.
Elizabeth Tang, wife of Lee Cheuk-yan, described the outcome as difficult to accept in comments to Reuters. “It’s a sad day for me as his wife. I cannot imagine that he has to spend another three years in jail, it is really unacceptable,” she said, adding that an appeal was certain. The United Nations, various rights organizations and several foreign governments have condemned the convictions and sentences, according to an Al Jazeera compilation of international reactions.
