A court in Hong Kong sentenced pro-democracy activist Chow Hang-tung to 15 additional months in prison Tuesday for her role in organizing a commemorative vigil of the Tiananmen Square massacre on June 4 last year.
The 36-year-old lawyer, who was convicted Tuesday for inciting an unlawful vigil in 2021, was already serving time behind bars for a different conviction for inciting a similar unlawful vigil in 2020. Chow has 22 months of remaining prison time for both sentences and is also facing charges of inciting subversion.
Chow was the vice chairwoman of the Hong Kong Alliance, an organization that has led annual candlelight vigils on the anniversary of China’s 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters since 1990, according to Reuters. The group, which disbanded last September, has denied accusations by police that it was an “agent of foreign forces.”
Chow represented herself in court and argued that she called for candles to be lit anywhere, not necessarily at the vigil, Nikkei Asia reported. She pleaded not guilty. Chow wrote two articles, “Lighting a candle is not a crime: Stand one’s ground” and “Candlelight carries the weight of conscience and the Hong Kong people persevere in telling the truth,” which the court evaluated in the recent case.
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“Just because the dictatorship is so greedy, compromise cannot survive, it will only be exchanged for endless expansion of the red line,” she wrote, according to reporter Jessie Pang. “Only by holding our ground and defending our position and principles with action, we fight for survival space.”
Magistrate Amy Chan ruled that Chow was trying to incite people to attend a vigil in violation of the city’s rules.
Hong Kong was the only place on Chinese-controlled soil that had legal permission for citizens to commemorate the event for several decades, according to CNN. In the aftermath of the pandemic, however, China cracked down on the commemorative events, citing public health concerns.
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The subversion charges stem from a Hong Kong national security law imposed by Beijing in 2020. The law, which established several crimes such as secession and collusion with foreign organizations, followed massive pro-democracy protests that took place in 2019 in Hong Kong.
The law was recently used to justify the recent arrests of six members of a pro-democracy news site Stand News on Dec. 29 for engaging in alleged “seditious” activities.
