A leader of a now-defunct Hong Kong group that held annual vigils to commemorate the Tiananmen crackdown has said he had concerns that the national security law could be used for “political repression”.
Chow Hang-tung, a former leader of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of China’s Patriotic Democratic Movements, told prosecutors on Thursday that the group held internal discussions about the law weeks before it was implemented in late June 2020.
The discussions, held before the June 4 vigil that year, addressed “concerns that the national security law would be used as a tool for political repression,” Chow told prosecutor Ivan Cheung.
“It can be used to suppress dissident voices, which is clearly what we were,” she said.
Chow, fellow leader Lee Cheuk-yan and the Alliance are on trial for “inciting subversion,” an offense under Beijing’s national security law that carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. Another leader, Albert Ho, who pleaded guilty to the charges, was barred from attending the trial.
The alliance dissolved in 2021 after authorities suspended vigilance for two years, citing Covid-19 restrictions, and arrested its leadership on national security charges.
Prosecutors allege the group tried to incite others to overthrow the CCP’s rule through its calls for an end to one-party rule, a core tenet of the group since its founding in 1989.
In response to Cheung’s question, Chow also confirmed that the Alliance supported Charter 08, a manifesto signed by Chinese dissidents and human rights activists in 2008, calling for political change, including an end to one-party rule.
She said that while the Alliance supported the movement’s general aims, disagreements could arise over implementation, such as how China should be reformed.
‘resistance’
Chow was also asked what the Alliance meant by “resist” in its 2020 vigilante slogan: “Truth, Freedom, Life – Resist.”
“Was the political system controlled by the Chinese Communist Party?” Cheung asked. Chow replied that the Alliance was resisting “every unjust oppression, not only in the political system, but every form of injustice.”
The same meaning applies to the slogan of 2021: “Resist, for freedom and our common destiny”.
The court was shown a video of the 2019 vigil, where Chow delivered a eulogy for those killed in the strike. “We reject this murderous government and vow to demand justice,” she said on stage in Victoria Park that year.
“The resistance that you started has become the fuel for many more resistance movements at home and abroad,” she also said that day, referring to the protesters in Tiananmen Square.
Various speakers took the stage, including Tiananmen survivor Liane Lee, who was a university student when she traveled to Beijing in 1989 in solidarity with the democracy movement.
The vigil ended with a call for attendees to take part in a rally days later on June 9 against the proposed extradition law that would spark months of protests and unrest.
Lee – an Alliance leader and Chow’s co-defendant in the case – shouted slogans urging the public to “fill Victoria Park” five days later and calling for the “draconian law” to be repealed.
Chow said Thursday that the purpose of the vigil was to remember. “We had to do justice to every warrior who comes, trembling, to share their testimony… The Alliance’s stance can only be described as very moderate, not very radical,” she said.
Answering questions from Alliance lawyer Priscilia Lam and Judge Alex Lee, Chow said she believed the call to end one-party rule was not illegal.
She also confirmed, in response to Lam’s questions, that the Alliance had removed terms from its founding charter that called for the “overthrow” of former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1994 and that the group had never called for the “overthrow or overthrow of the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.”
Lam submitted documents dating back to 2002 regarding the introduction of Hong Kong’s national security legislation, Article 23, which said the act of subversion had to be carried out by “serious illegal means”.
Chow said she was aware of such concepts, but the judges said the two-decade-old documents were irrelevant to the current case.
