The Hong Kong Court of First Instance on Friday found Chow Hang-tung, Lee Cheuk-yan, and the pair’s now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance, guilty of a “subversion” offense under the Beijing-imposed National Security Law (NSL).
Three NSL-designated judges unanimously ruled that the defendants’ advocacy, through annual vigils on June 4, for “the end of one-party dictatorship” amounted to an incitement to subversion. They found that there could be no “natural end” to the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP); the advocacy must be an incitement to overthrow or undermine China’s basic system.
Chow and Lee argued at trial that all power belongs to the people under Article 2 of the Chinese Constitution. The court, however, pointed to the 2018 amendment to Article 1, which enshrines the CCP’s leadership as the defining feature of socialism with Chinese characteristics, China’s basic system. Thus, the organization’s advocacy was incompatible with the Chinese Constitution, amounting to unlawful subversion.
As Article 18 of the city’s Basic Law provides that Chinese national laws do not automatically apply in the city, one issue the court faced was whether an act incompatible with the Chinese Constitution is unlawful within Hong Kong. The judges wrote that the Chinese Constitution is the ultimate source of Hong Kong legal authority; national laws compatible with the “One Country, Two Systems” principle therefore apply in the city.
The Hong Kong government welcomed the ruling, reiterating that the defendants were hostile towards the CCP and the Chinese government. Chief Executive John Lee vowed to safeguard national security and hold offenders accountable.
Amnesty International described the verdict as “dismaying,” and “the government’s deliberate campaign” to silence activists seeking accountability for the Tiananmen crackdown of June 4, 1989. The group called for their immediate release.
Since September 2021, the defendants have been facing a count of “incitement to subversion” under Article 22 of the 2020 NSL. The law criminalizes any acts involving force, threat of force, or unlawful means to overthrow China’s “basic system” or “state power.” While former legislator Albert Ho Chun-yan pleaded guilty to the charge, the three defendants pleaded not guilty. From Chow’s arrest on September 8, 2021, she had been in custody for 1,808 days before the court handed down a guilty verdict. Lee, charged on February 28, 2020, was then serving his 20-month jail sentence for participating in unauthorized assemblies. He has remained in custody since then.
The Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China—the organizational defendant in the case—held annual vigils to commemorate the Tiananmen massacre up until 2020. Former chief executive Carrie Lam disbanded the alliance in 2021, claiming it was necessary in the interest of national security.