ZOAHARIAN.COM - Activist groups say Hong Kong's 'crooked' justice system long ago found the couple guilty. A Hong Kong court found two pro-democracy activists guilty of national security charges in a trial widely seen as an example of the erosion of freedom of expression in the Chinese city. Lee Cheuk-yan, 69, and Chow Hang-tung, 41, former leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of China's Patriotic Democratic Movement, were found guilty of “incitement to subversion” for their roles in organizing a candlelight vigil to mark the deadly 1989 Tiananmen crackdown in Beijing, in a Hong Kong court on Friday.

Both pleaded not guilty and were indicted in 2021. The pair could face up to 10 years in prison. Sentencing is expected to be handed down at a later date.

Prosecutors argued that the pair “endangered national security in the name of human rights”. Chow, a self-represented human rights lawyer, told the court in May that the law was under trial. Friday's ruling was "not surprising", said Mark Clifford, president of the Freedom Committee at the Hong Kong Foundation.

Hong Kong's “crooked” justice system found the couple guilty in 2021, he said. He described Lee and Chow as “true Chinese patriots” who were silenced because they “spoke the truth to power” and “became a reflection of the Chinese Communist Party.” For three decades, candlelight vigils organized by the alliance were the only large-scale public commemoration of the Tiananmen crackdown, drawing tens of thousands of people each year to mourn China's victims.

The event was banned in 2020 during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, weeks before Beijing imposed a security law on Hong Kong to quell massive anti-government protests in 2019. Chow and Lee “exposed the Chinese authorities' fear of memories of the atrocities they committed,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, and urged authorities around the world to hold Beijing to account for eliminating Hong Kong's freedoms. Earlier this year, Jimmy Lai, 78, a prominent media mogul and human rights activist in Hong Kong, was found guilty on national security charges and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

In a personal blog published in the days leading up to the verdict, Chow detailed the treatment he endured at the penitentiary, in which he described being led “like a dog on a leash,” shackled at the wrists, waist and ankles. He described the new method of restraint, with special handcuffs, as a source of significant pain during his long captivity: “One could only 'choose' which parts of the body would suffer in turn” hence the bodily movements imposed by the restraints he imposed. Chow is one of the few high-profile political prisoners held in Hong Kong who continues to speak openly against the authorities.

In June 1989, Chinese authorities sent tanks and soldiers to crush the growing pro-democracy movement in Tiananmen Square in downtown Beijing. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people were killed by the army, and many were injured. Beijing has since attempted to censor any mention of the incident in China.