Hong Kong has long been the only place in China where the commemoration of Tiananmen events was tolerated.
Le Monde with AFP
For the second time, the Hong Kong activist Prémarocracy Chow Hang-Tung has been convicted, Tuesday, January 4, to have encouraged to participate in a vigil forbidden in tribute to the repression of Tiananmen, only a few months after a first conviction .
The 36-year lawyer was one of the leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance, who organized an annual vigil in tribute to the victims of the bloody repression of protesters in favor of democracy in Beijing on 4 June 1989 on Tiananmen Square.
For more than three decades, every June 4, tens of thousands of people met to participate in these commemorative vigils. But since the huge protesters of 2019 and the takeover in hand by Beijing from Hong Kong, these vigils are prohibited. In 2020 and 2021, the Hong Kong police had prohibited the holding of these gatherings, invoking the CVIV-19 epidemic and security threats.
“Turn on a candle is an offense”
Chow Hang-Tung had been arrested on June 4, 2021 after publishing two articles calling locals to light candles and commemorate Tiananmen’s repression anniversary.
Tuesday, a court sentenced him to fifteen months’ imprisonment after he had that his articles were coming to encourage people to brave the ban on the police.
“The message that this verdict sends is that illuming a candle is a crime, that the words are a crime,” said Chow Hang-tung to the court. “The only way to defend freedom of expression is to continue to express themselves,” she added. “The real crime is to cover the murderers with laws and to erase victims on behalf of the state.”
charged for breaking the National Security Act
Chow Hang-Tung already purges a year of prison after being sentenced a few months ago for encouraged in 2020 to participate in a Tiananmen vigil. It will have to spend twenty-two months behind the bars, according to the new calculation carried out by the court.
The proprietary activist was also charged for breaking the drastic law on national security, the facts liable to life prison.
Many activists, including Chow Hang-Tung, have already been sentenced to imprisonment for breaking this ban in 2020.
In the face of pressures, the Hong Kong Alliance Association voted in September its dissolution. The 4-Jun Museum dedicated to the repression of Tiananmen in 1989, managed by the Hong Kong Alliance, was forced to close its doors in June.