Hong Kong court docket rejects Tiananmen vigil organiser’s bid to quash indictment

A Hong Kong court docket on Monday (November 3, 2025) rejected a former Tiananmen vigil organiser’s try to quash her indictment, urgent forward with a landmark case broadly seen as a part of a years-long crackdown on the town’s pro-democracy motion.

Chow Hang-tung, a former chief of the group that organised a decades-old vigil to recollect China’s 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, was charged in 2021 with inciting subversion, which carries a most penalty of life imprisonment. She was charged along with two of the group’s different former leaders, Albert Ho and Lee Cheuk-yan.

Their case was introduced below a nationwide safety legislation imposed by Beijing in 2020 to quell large anti-government protests in 2019. The trio have been accused of inciting others to problem the management of the Communist Party by illegal means.

Ms. Chow, who’s a barrister and is defending herself, stated the indictment was unacceptably obscure as a result of authorities didn’t specify an illegal means. She stated it may quantity to a “catch-all cost”. Prosecutor Ned Lai argued that illegal means meant these towards the Chinese structure, which stipulates that the get together’s management is the defining characteristic of socialism with Chinese traits and that damaging the socialist system is prohibited.

The three-judge panel, permitted by the federal government to supervise the case, dominated towards Ms. Chow. Judge Alex Lee stated the panel would challenge an opinion in January.

Ms. Chow appeared calm when she discovered in regards to the determination and smiled to the general public gallery earlier than leaving the courtroom.

The Tiananmen vigil, organised by the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, was the one large-scale public commemoration of the 1989 crackdown in China for many years till authorities banned it in 2020, citing anti-pandemic measures.

The group got here below rising strain as police opened an investigation, accusing it of being a overseas agent. The group rejected the allegations and refused to cooperate. Ms. Chow, Mr. Ho and Mr. Lee have been later charged with violations of the National Security Law.

In 2021, the alliance’s members voted to disband.

Ms. Chow and two different core members of the group have been convicted in 2023 for failing to offer authorities with data and obtained a sentence of four-and-a-half months every. But in March, the trio overturned their convictions on the metropolis’s prime court docket, marking a uncommon court docket victory for the town’s pro-democracy activists.

A trial within the nationwide safety trial is ready for Jan. 22.

Since pandemic-era gathering restrictions have been lifted, the park the place the vigil was beforehand held has been occupied on the Tiananmen anniversary by a carnival showcasing Chinese meals and merchandise.

Fernando Cheung, spokesperson for Amnesty International Hong Kong Overseas, stated the court docket’s determination on Monday (November 3) confirmed that the authorities have been “weaponising the overly broad idea of nationwide safety’ to suppress freedom of expression with impunity”.

“Commemorating the Tiananmen crackdown ought to by no means have been prosecuted,” he stated, calling for the discharge of these detained for what he referred to as peacefully exercising their proper to freedom of expression.

The Hong Kong Government insists that the town’s safety legislation restored the town’s stability after the 2019 protests.