The first major security-law trial targeting Tiananmen remembrance opens in Hong Kong, putting freedom of expression on the docket and the world on notice.
What happened inside the courtroom
Three judges hand-picked by Hong Kong’s government opened the 75-day trial of Chow Hang-tung and Lee Cheuk-yan, former vice-chair and chair of the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China. Minutes after taking their seats, Lee waved to supporters and Chow bowed to the gallery; both pleaded not guilty to inciting subversion under the 2020 national-security law. Co-defendant Albert Ho pleaded guilty, exposing himself to a reduced sentence but accepting the prosecution’s core claim: that the Alliance’s long-standing slogan “end one-party rule” is inherently unlawful.
Why the prosecution calls a slogan a crime
Lead prosecutor Ned Lai told the court that demanding an end to Chinese Communist Party rule “must require acts that violate the Chinese constitution” and therefore amounts to subversion. No concrete plot is alleged; instead, the indictment argues the slogan’s “natural and reasonable effect” is to destabilize state power. The prosecution’s opening statement says the Alliance used the “June 4th incident” and “negative content targeting the country” to mask an illegal agenda.
The vigil that once drew 180,000 people
From 1990 to 2019, the Alliance packed Hong Kong’s Victoria Park with candlelight on every June 4, turning the city into the only place on Chinese soil where the 1989 killings were publicly remembered. Attendance peaked at 180,000 in 2014, organizers estimated. After authorities banned the 2020 rally citing COVID-19, the park was handed to pro-Beijing carnival organizers; lone citizens who tried to light candles were detained. The Alliance voted to disband in September 2021 after police demanded its membership and financial records, accusing it of foreign-agent activity without public evidence.
How the security law rewrote Hong Kong’s rules
Beijing imposed the National Security Law on June 30, 2020, bypassing Hong Kong’s legislature. It criminalizes secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces, carrying penalties up to life imprisonment. Since enactment, dozens of opposition figures have been convicted, including media tycoon Jimmy Lai last month. More than 50 civil-society groups—from labor unions to student unions—have dissolved under pressure.
Global stakes: criminalizing an idea
Oxford Brookes University law lecturer Urania Chiu warns the case “goes to the heart of freedom of expression,” because it treats a political slogan as subversion without requiring any violent act. Amnesty’s deputy regional director Sarah Brooks calls the trial an attempt at “rewriting history and punishing those who refuse to forget.” Diplomats from the U.S., EU and U.K. have attended prior hearings, signalling international scrutiny over whether Beijing is eroding the “one country, two systems” pledge that promised Hong Kong unchanged freedoms until 2047.
What happens next
The court will hear video evidence of past vigils and review internal Alliance documents. A guilty verdict would cement the precedent that peaceful speech against one-party rule equals subversion. Chow and Lee, already jailed since 2021, face up to 10 more years; Ho awaits sentencing after his guilty plea. Whatever the judgment, the Alliance’s archives—once displayed in Hong Kong’s now-shuttered June 4th Museum—are likely to become Exhibit A in a trial that is itself a historical marker.
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