The prosecution of Hong Kong activists for commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown is a further escalation in the authorities’ weaponization of national security laws to silence dissent, Amnesty International said today at the opening of the activists’ trial.
Lawyer Chow Hang-tung and trade unionist Lee Cheuk-yan have been detained for more than four years awaiting trial and face years’ more imprisonment on national security charges. Chow and Lee were members of the now disbanded Hong Kong Alliance, which organized the city’s annual Tiananmen Square candlelight vigil for more three decades until it was banned amid a clampdown on human rights.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of people were killed when Chinese troops opened fire on protesters in and around Tiananmen Square, Beijing, on 4 June 1989.
“This case is not about national security – it is about rewriting history and punishing those who refuse to forget the victims of the Tiananmen crackdown,” said Sarah Brooks, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director.
“Chow and Lee’s principal ‘crime’ has been to seek truth and justice for the protesters shot dead by Chinese troops and for the families left grieving. This cynical case against them is a clear illustration of how the Hong Kong government uses vague and overly broad national security laws as tools of repression.”
Chow Hang-tung and Lee Cheuk-yan were among the members of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China (Hong Kong Alliance) charged with “inciting subversion of state power” under the National Security Law in September 2021.
They have been held in pre-trial detention ever since, having been repeatedly denied bail, and face up to 10 years’ imprisonment if convicted. They have both been designated as prisoners of conscience by Amnesty International.
Authorities said the annual Tiananmen vigil the Hong Kong Alliance had organized since 1990 was evidence of the group “endangering national security”.
Amnesty International has repeatedly raised concerns that Hong Kong’s National Security Law, enacted in June 2020, is being used to target civil society groups, journalists, political activists and academics for actions that are fully protected under international human rights law.
The organization calls on the Hong Kong authorities to drop all charges against members of the Hong Kong Alliance detained simply for exercising their rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association, repeal the National Security Law and respect and facilitate the peaceful commemoration of the Tiananmen crackdown.
“History cannot be erased. Hong Kong’s courts now face a critical test: whether they will uphold human rights, or continue to lend judicial legitimacy to a sweeping crackdown on dissent,” Sarah Brooks said.
“Chow Hang-tung and Lee Cheuk-yan are prisoners of conscience, jailed simply for exercising their rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly. The Hong Kong authorities must immediately and unconditionally release them.”
Background
On 4 June 1989, Chinese troops opened fire on students and workers who had been peacefully protesting for political reforms in and around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Hundreds – possibly thousands – of people were killed. Tens of thousands more were arrested across China in the suppression that followed.
In the 36 years since the crackdown, all discussion of the incident has been heavily censored in China, as authorities have effectively attempted to erase it from history. Public commemoration or mere mention of the Tiananmen crackdown is banned.
While commemorating the Tiananmen crackdown was forbidden in mainland China, crowds reaching hundreds of thousands of people would gather annually in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park to remember those killed. They called on the Chinese authorities to reveal the truth about what happened and accept accountability for the atrocity.
The Hong Kong vigil was banned in 2020 and 2021, ostensibly on Covid-19 grounds, and since then repressive new laws such as the 2020 National Security Law have effectively criminalized peaceful protest in the city.
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