An activist who once organised annual vigils to commemorate the Tiananmen crackdown has said that a Hong Kong court’s decision to convict her under national security legislation amounts to saying that “pursuing democracy is a crime.”
The 2018 candlelight vigil commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown in Beijing. File photo: Kris Cheng/HKFP.Chow Hang-tung was convicted last week, alongside Lee Cheuk-yan and Albert Ho, of inciting subversion under a Beijing-imposed national security law. The ruling has been condemned by rights groups and the United Nations, and lauded by the local government.
The three activists appeared before a panel of designated judges at the West Kowloon Law Courts Building on Friday for a mitigation hearing. They are set to be sentenced within two weeks, the judges said.
Chow, one of the former leaders of the now-defunct Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, was not allowed to read out her mitigation statement in full. Chow, herself a barrister, is representing herself.
When it was her turn to deliver her statements, she began reading from her submission but was promptly interrupted by High Court judge Alex Lee.
‘Nowhere left to stand’“The 206-page judgment, after all, boils down to saying that pursuing democracy is a crime,” Chow said of the court’s ruling last week.
See also: Tiananmen vigil activist Chow Hang-tung’s mitigation after guilty verdict in national security trial
“I find it entirely unpalatable that any political party can barter away a nation’s sovereignty, claim to represent the will of the people, appoint itself as the sole authority, and then insist that citizens are legally bound to uphold its self-fashioned throne,” she said, before she was cut off.
The annual vigil at Victoria Park on June 4, 2020, to commemorate victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre. Photo: May James/HKFP.“You can make these statements at another occasion,” judge Lee said.
Chow, nonetheless, continued, saying that anyone who believes in ending one-party rule in mainland China – a central tenet of the Alliance’s activism that became the basis for prosecuting the activists – “has nowhere left to stand.”
“In the eyes of this brand of ‘law’, holding such a thought inherently contravenes the Constitution – rendering it unlawful, an original sin,” she said, prompting judge Lee to ask Chow whether she intended to mitigate.
Lee asked: “So, you will continue to persist?” The activist answered in the affirmative, and Lee said the court would take her response into account.
Lee also jokingly said that Chow should thank the court after the activist said that the security case had spread the Alliance’s message across the globe, drawing chuckles from the public gallery.
No ‘substantial destruction’Barrister Erik Shum, representing Lee and Ho, asked the court to place the two activists in the lower of the two sentencing bands for the offence, saying that they had been convicted of an inchoate offence with no premeditation, roadmap, or timeline.
Under the lower band, the activists would face less than five years in prison.
Shum contrasted the Alliance’s case to that of the Hong Kong 47, saying that the latter involved a clear plan to secure a majority in the legislature and indiscriminately veto the budget.
He also asked for a 20 to 25 per cent discount off Ho’s sentence. The former lawmaker pleaded guilty when the trial opened in January.
“Whether the incitement led to substantial destruction is a very important sentencing factor,” Shum said.
Chow and Lee have been held in detention for almost four years, while Ho has been remanded for three years and six months.