Three veteran Hong Kong activists who organised annual vigils remembering the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown have been sentenced to prison terms of up to seven years.
Lee Cheuk-yan, 69, and Chow Hang-tung, 41, received seven years and seven years three months respectively after being convicted last month of “inciting others to subvert state power” under Hong Kong’s national security law. Albert Ho, 74, who pleaded guilty in January, was sentenced to five years. The three had faced maximum terms of up to 10 years after being charged in 2021.
For decades, Hong Kong was one of the few places in Chinese territory where public commemorations of the Tiananmen crackdown could be held. The annual vigils — organised for years by the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance, which Lee, Chow and Ho led — drew large crowds and called for accountability, the release of dissidents and democratic reforms. Police and organisers often disagreed over attendance figures, with organisers sometimes saying turnout topped 100,000.
Authorities banned the commemorations in 2020, citing Covid-19 restrictions, and the gatherings have not resumed. In the same year Beijing imposed a national security law on Hong Kong that broadened the definition of crimes such as secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces. Officials have defended the law as necessary to restore stability after months of unrest in 2019; critics say it has sharply eroded the city’s autonomy and chilled dissent.
A central issue at the trial was the Alliance’s slogan calling for an “end to one-party dictatorship,” which the court said amounted to incitement to undermine the Chinese Communist Party. According to a court summary published in August, Lee and Chow “incited other persons to organise, plan, commit or participate in acts by unlawful means with a view to subverting the state power.” Chow had told the court in May that the trial was a test of the law itself.
When the verdicts were read, both Chow and Lee briefly smiled and acknowledged supporters in the public gallery; Ho remained solemn. After the sentences were handed down, Lee appeared to pray as he was led away, and Chow blew a kiss to the gallery. Outside court, family members urged resilience. Lee’s wife, Elizabeth Tang, called the outcome “a sad day,” saying she could not imagine him spending years behind bars and that he planned to appeal. Chow’s mother told well-wishers not to be “overly saddened” and urged them not to feel guilty.
Alongside the custodial sentences, the court imposed a HK$1.5 million (about US$191,000) fine on the Hong Kong Alliance.
Human rights groups condemned the penalties. Amnesty International called the sentencing “a triple tragedy” for the activists, for victims and survivors of the 1989 crackdown, and for Hongkongers deprived of space to discuss a pivotal event in Chinese history. Human Rights Watch said the harsh penalties exposed the “cruelty and insecurity” of a government “afraid of memory and the people.”
The defendants’ convictions mark another moment in Hong Kong’s rapid political transformation since 2019. Once known for its freedoms and vibrant civil society, the city has seen a steady narrowing of political space: protests have been curtailed, newspapers and pro-democracy organisations have closed or been wound down, and many activists have been arrested or forced into exile. The national security law has been a key instrument in that shift, used in cases ranging from street protests to online speech.
The Tiananmen Square crackdown — when Chinese troops and tanks moved against student-led protests in Beijing in June 1989 — remains a highly sensitive and tightly censored topic in mainland China, where official accounts dismiss calls for reassessment. Estimates of the death toll vary widely, from several hundred to several thousand.
In Hong Kong, the vigils had become a focal point for memorialising the victims and calling for democratic change. The convictions and sentences of Lee, Chow and Ho close a chapter on the city’s last large-scale, public act of remembrance and underscore the difficulties for those who continue to press for political freedoms under the new legal regime.
What happens next is likely to include appeals by the convicted activists and continued criticism from rights groups and foreign governments. For many in Hong Kong and beyond, the case represents both the shrinking space for dissent and the enduring tensions over how China’s past and its political system are discussed and remembered.
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