HONG KONG — Three pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong who organized annual vigils for victims of China’s 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown were sentenced to prison terms between five and over seven years Friday after being convicted under a national security law that critics say has stifled dissent in the Chinese territory.Lee Cheuk-yan was sentenced to seven years in prison, while Chow Hang-tung was sentenced to seven years and three months.Both had pleaded not guilty to charges of inciting subversion under the Beijing-imposed law.
A third defendant, Albert Ho, 74, was sentenced to five years and two months after pleading guilty, which can result in a shorter sentence.Both Lee and Chow, who have been in custody continuously since they were charged five years ago, had pleaded for reduced sentences after the verdict.They had faced a maximum of 10 years in prison.All three were leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, which for three decades held annual candlelight vigils in honor of those who were killed on June 4, 1989, in a Chinese military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in and around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
The vigils, which drew tens of thousands of people a year, were the only large-scale public commemoration on Chinese soil of the Tiananmen crackdown, discussion of which is heavily censored in mainland China.The alliance was also convicted in the case.The trial, which began in January, was heard by three government-appointed judges who ruled last month that the alliance’s longtime call to “end one-party dictatorship” in China was an unlawful form of incitement to overthrow the country’s ruling Communist Party.
Lee Cheuk-yan has been in custody continuously since he was charged under the national security law in 2021.Tommy Walker / NurPhoto via Getty Images fileThe United States, along with many other Western governments and the United Nations, condemned the Aug.21 verdict as a further s...