Hong Kong Tiananmen activists face security verdict

A Hong Kong court is due to deliver a verdict on Friday in the national security trial of pro-democracy activists Lee Cheuk-yan and Chow Hang-tung, who helped organise annual vigils for the victims of Beijing's 1989 Tiananmen crackdown.

Lee, 69, and Chow, 41, are standing trial for incitement to subversion. They face up to 10 years in jail if convicted by the three-judge panel.

Prosecutors have argued that the defendants endangered national security in the name of human rights. Chow, who represented herself, told the court in May that the law itself was on trial.

Lee and Chow were leaders of the now-defunct Hong Kong Alliance, which organised annual candlelight vigils in Victoria Park. Public commemoration has been effectively banned since Beijing imposed a national security law on Hong Kong in 2020, after major pro-democracy protests the previous year.

The Alliance's leaders were charged in 2021 and have been behind bars since. A third defendant, former lawmaker Albert Ho, pleaded guilty in January.

Rights group Amnesty International has criticised the case, saying it relies on vague, broad and arbitrary definitions of subversion. The trial began in January and took place over 24 days.

As of the start of August, Hong Kong authorities had arrested 415 people for various national security crimes, with 185 of them convicted.