Court convicted Hong Kong democracy activist and barrister Chow Hang-tung, as well as Tang Ngok Kwan and Tsui Hon Kwong.
Prominent Hong Kong pro-democracy activist and barrister Chow Hang-tung, 38, was among those convicted by the magistrate court on Saturday.
Chow is a former vice chairperson of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China. Two other former standing committee members of the Alliance, Tang Ngok Kwan and Tsui Hon Kwong, were also found guilty.
The now-disbanded Alliance was the main organiser of Hong Kong’s June 4 candlelight vigil for victims of China’s crackdown on peaceful pro-democracy supporters in Tiananmen Square.
Every year, the vigil drew tens of thousands of people in the largest public commemoration of its kind on Chinese soil.
The sentencing of the three is expected on March 11, with a maximum jail term of six months for this particular offence.
Since Hong Kong’s massive pro-democracy protests in 2019, authorities have not allowed the vigil to take place on COVID-related grounds. The Alliance disbanded in September 2021 after authorities arrested several senior members of the group, including Chow.
Chow denied this in court, saying the Alliance was an independent civil society group run by Hong Kongers and that the case against her and the others amounted to “political persecution”. Chow, a trained lawyer, defended herself and denied the group was a threat to national security.
“If the Alliance was a threat to anything, it was a threat to the monopolisation of power and manipulation of truth,” Chow said in her closing submission.
The court also ruled that the prosecution did not need to prove the Alliance was a foreign agent.
During the trial, defence lawyer Albert Wong said the redaction of evidence and waiver of the burden of proof would “[allow] the Commissioner of Police to put a blank label of foreign agent to anybody”.
Magistrate Peter Law, who was hand-picked to hear national security cases by Hong Kong’s Beijing-backed leader, said in a written judgement on Saturday that it was necessary for the police to “ascertain the background” of the group given its political activities and “nexus of interactions with local and non-local organisations and people.”
Hong Kong’s national security law, which punishes acts including subversion and collusion with foreign forces, has been criticised by some Western governments as a tool to crush dissent.
