HONG KONG: Hong Kong’s top court quashed the prison terms of three Tiananmen vigil activists on Thursday (Mar 6), saying it was a “miscarriage of justice” to jail them for refusing to submit information to national security police.
The judgment is a stinging rebuke to the government, which has targeted dissent using expansive powers under a national security law imposed by Beijing after Hong Kong’s huge pro-democracy protests in 2019.
The law can be used to demand information from alleged “foreign agents” and authorities used that power in 2021 on the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance, which organised vigils to mark Beijing’s 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown before those events were banned.
Three group leaders – Chow Hang-tung, Tang Ngok-kwan and Tsui Hon-kwong – were jailed, each for four and a half months, after they refused to turn over details on group members and finances.
But five judges at the Court of Final Appeal sided with the trio on Thursday and said the prosecution “made it impossible for them to have a fair trial”.
“The court unanimously allows the appeals,” Chief Justice Andrew Cheung said.
Tang, who had finished serving his prison term, said the ruling was a vindication of his group and urged people not to forget the victims of the Tiananmen crackdown.
“This is hugely gratifying for those who support the Alliance and its volunteers,” he told reporters outside the court.
“I hope we can prove in the future that the 1989 democracy movement (in China) was not a counter-revolutionary riot.”
The Alliance is facing more serious subversion charges under Hong Kong’s national security law and the historical narrative surrounding Tiananmen is expected to be a key point of contention at an upcoming trial.
