Three former organizers of Hong Kong’s annual vigil in remembrance of the Tiananmen Square Massacre were jailed yesterday for four-and-a-half months for failing to provide authorities with information on the group under Hong Kong’s National Security Law.
Chow Hang-tung (鄒幸彤), Tang Ngok-kwan (鄧岳君) and Tsui Hon-kwong (徐漢光), leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, were arrested in 2021 and found guilty last week.
The alliance voted to disband in 2021 under the shadow of the Beijing-imposed national security legislation.
Photo: AP
Before its disbandment, police had sought details about its operations and finances in connection with alleged links to democracy groups overseas, accusing it of being a foreign agent.
The group refused to cooperate, saying that the police did not have a right to ask for its information because it was not a foreign agent and the authorities did not provide sufficient justification.
Chow denied the alliance was a foreign agent and said that nothing had emerged that proved otherwise.
Photo: AFP
She said their sentencing was about punishing people for defending the truth, and that national security was being used as a pretext to wage a war on civil society.
“Sir, sentence us for our insubordination if you must, but when the exercise of power is based on lies, being insubordinate is the only way to be human,” she said.
Handing down the sentences, Magistrate Peter Law (羅德泉) said the case is the first of its kind under the new law and the sentencing has to send a clear message that the law does not condone any contravention.
Law, who was approved by Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee (李家超) to oversee the case, said he saw no justification for reducing the four-and-a-half-month sentence.
Chow and two other former alliance leaders, Lee Cheuk-yan (李卓人) and Albert Ho (何俊仁), were charged with subversion under the security law in 2021.
In a separate case, Elizabeth Tang (鄧燕娥), who was arrested for endangering national security earlier this week, was released on bail yesterday. Tang is a veteran labor activist and also Lee Cheuk-yan’s wife.
In a statement on Thursday that did not provide a name, police said they had arrested a 65-year-old woman for suspected collusion with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security. It said she was being detained for investigation.
“I feel clueless because my work is always about labor rights and organizing trade unions. So I don’t understand why I was accused of breaking the law and endangering national security,” she told reporters after being released.
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