Hong Kong starts security trial of Tiananmen vigil organisers

Hong Kong used to host yearly candlelight vigils to mark Beijing's deadly crackdown on demonstrators in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989 -- but those events have been banned since 2020.

That year, Beijing imposed a national security law on the former British colony in the wake of huge, sometimes violent pro-democracy protests.

The Tiananmen vigil organiser, known as the Hong Kong Alliance, shut down in 2021 after authorities arrested the three leaders now on trial.

The trio and the Alliance are charged with "incitement to subversion", with the no-jury trial scheduled for 75 days.

Defendants Chow Hang-tung and Lee Cheuk-yan have been behind bars since 2021 and pleaded not guilty at the start of the hearing. The third defendant, Albert Ho, pleaded guilty.

Around 70 people queued in the cold on Thursday morning for the public gallery, while dozens of police were deployed around the court.

Simon Ng, a retiree in his 60s, said the Alliance's vigils once reflected how the city's political system was "fundamentally different from that of mainland China", adding the activists were "honourable" in supporting China's democratisation.

The Alliance had repeatedly called for the "end of one-party rule" in China, which prosecutors said amounted to subverting state power, according to a case document published Wednesday.

The prosecution will rely on company records, online material, clips of public speeches and evidence seized from the now-defunct Tiananmen museum operated by the group.

Amnesty International said on Thursday the trial was "not about national security -- it is about rewriting history".

Human Rights Watch urged Hong Kong to drop all charges and release the activists.

Hong Kong authorities say the prosecutions are safeguarding human rights and based on evidence.

The three-judge panel earlier dismissed an application to quash the case from defendant Chow -- a barrister who represented herself on Thursday and in previous hearings.

"The court will not allow the trial to become, as (Chow) said, a tool for political suppression," the judges wrote in a preliminary ruling.
30 years of vigils
The Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China was founded in May 1989 to support protesters holding democracy and anti-corruption rallies in Beijing.

The following month, China's government sent tanks and soldiers to crush the movement on and around Tiananmen Square, a decision it has since heavily censored domestically.

The Alliance spent the next three decades calling on Beijing to accept responsibility, free dissidents and embrace democratic reform.

Its candlelight vigils in Hong Kong's Victoria Park every June 4 routinely drew thousands.

US-based Tiananmen survivor Zhou Fengsuo told AFP he was "deeply concerned" for the defendants and that the vigils used to be "a source of hope, justice (and) comfort".

"They represent the conscience of a free Hong Kong that was destroyed," he said.

Authorities last year barred overseas witnesses from testifying remotely in national security cases.

In 2021, the Alliance refused to turn over details on group members and finances to Hong Kong's national security police -- a decision that sparked a criminal prosecution.

Tang Ngok-kwan, a former Alliance member involved in that earlier case, told AFP that he hoped the upcoming trial would be a chance to revisit history.

"By having a venue to debate China's constitutional development, I hope the case will have an impact on the future," Tang said.

The trial follows last month's conviction of media tycoon Jimmy Lai, which drew international condemnation.

Lai was found guilty of conspiring to commit foreign collusion.

The city's Chief Justice responded to the Lai criticisms on Monday, saying that judges deal "only with the law and the evidence, not with any underlying matters of politics".