Hong Kong begins national security trial for organisers of Tiananmen vigils

Rights groups condemn proceedings of 3 activists accused of ‘inciting subversion of authorities power.’

A landmark proceedings of 3 activists who organised vigils marking China’s Tiananmen Square massacre has opened successful Hong Kong.

Chow Hang-tung, Albert Ho and Lee Cheuk-yan, erstwhile leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance successful Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, are charged with “inciting subversion of authorities power” successful the lawsuit earlier the Chinese territory’s High Court.

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As they entered the courtroom connected Thursday, Lee waved astatine his supporters, who waved backmost and said “good morning” to him.

Ho sat calmly, and Chow thanked her supporters for enduring the winds during the nighttime and bowed to them.

Minutes later, Lee and Chow pleaded not guilty, portion Ho entered a blameworthy plea.

About 70 radical queued successful the acold connected Thursday greeting for the nationalist gallery, portion dozens of constabulary were deployed astir the court.

Hong Kong utilized to big yearly candlelight vigils to people Beijing’s deadly crackdown connected demonstrators successful Tiananmen Square connected June 4, 1989, but those events person been banned since 2020.

That year, Beijing imposed a nationalist information instrumentality connected the erstwhile British colony successful the aftermath of huge, sometimes convulsive pro-democracy protests.

Rights groups and immoderate overseas governments person criticised cases brought against salient pro-democracy figures nether the instrumentality arsenic a weaponisation of the regularisation of instrumentality to soundlessness dissent.

“This lawsuit is not astir nationalist information – it is astir rewriting past and punishing those who garbage to hide the victims of the Tiananmen crackdown,” said Sarah Brooks, Amnesty International’s lawman determination director, Asia.

Angeli Datt, probe and advocacy coordinator astatine the Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders, condemned the proceedings arsenic a “sham”.

“If Hong Kong authorities really travel the law, their lone recourse is to driblet each charges and instantly merchandise the 3 organisers,” Datt said successful a statement.

Beijing has said the information instrumentality restored stableness to the metropolis pursuing the 2019 protests, which sent hundreds of thousands of radical onto the streets.

Three government-vetted judges volition preside implicit the trial, which is expected to past 75 days. Videos related to the alliance’s years of enactment volition beryllium portion of the prosecution’s evidence.

The three-judge sheet earlier dismissed an exertion by Chow to propulsion retired the case.

“The tribunal volition not let the proceedings to become, arsenic [Chow] said, a instrumentality for governmental suppression,” the judges wrote successful a preliminary ruling.

The Hong Kong Alliance successful Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China was founded successful May 1989 to enactment protesters holding ideology and anticorruption rallies successful Beijing.

The pursuing month, China’s authorities sent tanks and soldiers to crush the question connected and astir Tiananmen Square, a determination it has since heavy censored domestically.

The Alliance spent the adjacent 3 decades calling connected Beijing to judge responsibility, escaped dissidents, and clasp antiauthoritarian reform.

Its candlelight vigils successful Hong Kong’s Victoria Park each June 4 routinely drew thousands.

The proceedings of Chow, Lee and Ho follows past month’s condemnation of media tycoon Jimmy Lai, which drew planetary condemnation.

Lai was recovered blameworthy of conspiring to perpetrate overseas collusion.

The city’s main justness responded to the criticisms of Lai’s condemnation connected Monday, saying the judges woody “only with the instrumentality and the evidence, not with immoderate underlying matters of politics”.