Hong Kong court hears final arguments in trial of Tiananmen vigil organizers, hopes for July verdict

HONG KONG: A Hong Kong court on Tuesday concluded final arguments in a national security trial for two former organizers of the city's vigils remembering the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.

Judge Alex Lee, one of the three government-vetted judges, said that they hoped to deliver a verdict in July for Chow Hang-tung and Lee Cheuk-yan, two former leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China.

For decades, the now-defunct alliance organized the only large-scale public commemoration in China that attracted tens of thousands annually until the event was banned in 2020 during the first year of the coronavirus pandemic.

Chow and Lee were charged in 2021 with inciting subversion under a Beijing-imposed national security law, facing a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison if convicted. They pleaded not guilty in January.

Observers say their prosecution and the disappearance of the vigil symbolized the decline in freedoms that Beijing had promised when the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997. The Hong Kong and Beijing governments said that the security law is crucial for the city's stability.

In previous hearings, the prosecution has focused on "ending one-party rule," one of the alliance's core demands, arguing that the group's advocacy was about inciting others to use unlawful means to overthrow the leadership of China's ruling Communist Party.

Chow, a barrister who defended herself, said on Tuesday that her trial was a "very strange case," because the defendants neither denied anything they had done nor argued that what they said didn't reflect their thoughts.

Chow said that "ending one-party rule" means ending a state where power is unrestricted, and that a key question in the case is whether the law is really safeguarding the Chinese Communist Party to rule forever and banning the people from pushing forward democratization.

Chow argued that the standard for determining right and wrong has been turned upside down in this case.

"Speaking the truth has become inciting hatred, seeking justice has become exploiting suffering, limiting power has become violating the constitution, and returning power to the people has become subverting the state," she said.

She said that if the court fails to gatekeep over the reasonable effects of their statements, it could easily become an accomplice by tolerating the crimes committed by those in power.

The prosecution, on Monday, said that freedoms of speech, assembly, and association aren't absolute rights, accusing the defendants of attempting to blur the focus with human rights arguments.

After hearing arguments from both sides, Lee said on Tuesday that the judges can't specify a verdict date, but hoped to have a decision between mid- and late July.

The trial, which was initially scheduled to last 75 days, moved faster than expected. Tuesday was the 24th day of the trial.

Albert Ho, also a defendant in the case, entered a guilty plea when the trial began in January. Pleading guilty typically could result in a sentence reduction.

Hong Kong's annual Tiananmen vigils mourned the victims who died in a crackdown on student-led protests in 1989, during which tanks rolled into the heart of Beijing and soldiers fired live rounds. Hundreds and possibly thousands of people were killed, including dozens of soldiers.

Authorities banned the vigil in Hong Kong in 2020, citing the COVID-19 pandemic. But after COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, the former vigil site was occupied instead by a carnival organized by pro-Beijing groups. Some people who tried to commemorate the event near the site on June 4, the crackdown's anniversary, were detained.
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