Sentence announced in Hong Kong: detention for Tiananmen organizers

Three former members of the Hong Kong Alliance who organized annual protests to commemorate the Tiananmen Square massacre have been sentenced to prison terms. A court has now announced the sentence.

In Hong Kong, three former organizers of the annual commemoration of the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square have been sentenced to prison terms. A court in the Chinese special administrative region has now announced the sentence. Chow Hang-tung, Tang Ngok-kwan and Tsui Hon-kwong then have to go to prison for four and a half months. Tang and Tsui have been conditionally released pending appeal, while Chow remains in custody pending trial in another case.

The three members of the Hong Kong alliance had already been found guilty under the so-called security law last week for refusing to cooperate with the National Security Police – the sentence was still pending. In 2021, the police asked her to hand over numerous documents, including minutes of meetings and financial documents.

dissolution of the alliance

For three decades, the Hong Kong Alliance had organized the public commemoration of the suppression of the protests on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park. In 2020, the Tiananmen commemoration was banned. A few weeks later, Beijing passed the so-called security law to take action against the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong.

The alliance was forced to disband in 2021 after seven leading members of the organization were accused of security law violations. Five of them, including Vice Chair Chow, were prosecuted. Two Allianz members who pleaded guilty in court have already been sentenced to three months in prison in 2021 and 2022.

Judgment with “deterrent” effect

The Security Law allows police to request organizational, financial and operational information from any person or entity they deem to be a “foreign agent” in Hong Kong. However, the Hong Kong Alliance refused to cooperate with the police because it was not a “foreign agent”. However, Judge Peter Law stated in his ruling that information is of central importance to national security. The judgment must therefore also have a “deterrent” effect.

Chow said at the end of the trial that the alliance was not a security threat. “If the alliance posed a threat to anything, then it was a threat to the monopolization of power and the manipulation of truth,” said the trained lawyer in her closing argument.

Free speech in Hong Kong by 2020

Until 2020, Hong Kong was the only place in China where vigils for the Tiananmen Massacre were possible. Freedom of expression and demonstration were guaranteed there. Since the state and party leadership in Beijing put the so-called security law for the Chinese special administrative region into force, this is no longer possible in Hong Kong either. The law can effectively criminalize anything that can be construed against the state and party leadership.

With information from Benjamin Eyssel, ARD Studio Beijing