Three organizers of Tiananmen protest commemoration in Hong Kong sentenced to prison | Abroad

The annual commemoration of the Tiananmen protest, in which the Chinese regime bloodily crushed protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square for more democracy, has been banned since 2020. That year, Chinese authorities pushed through a draconian “national security law” that curtailed opposition in Hong Kong.

Three leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance, which organized the commemorations for 30 years, were found guilty last week of failing to hand over several documents to the police. It would concern minutes of meetings and the histories of financial transactions. The authorities requested the documents because the group was suspected of being a ‘foreign agent’.

Magistrate Peter Law stated that national security is of paramount importance and that the sentence should therefore be “sufficiently dissuasive”. Chow Hang-tung, who was captured along with two other leading members of the Alliance, vowed to “fight the lie with the truth” in a provocative courtroom speech. “Condemn us for disobedience if necessary. But if the exercise of power is based on lies, disobedience is the only way to be human,” he said.

On Saturday, the other two members of the Alliance, Tang Ngok-kwan and Tsui Hon-kwong, were released pending appeal proceedings. Chow, on the other hand, remains in jail awaiting another trial, but one that also has to do with “national security.” Two other members of the Hong Kong Alliance have already pleaded guilty in 2021 and 2022. They each received three months in prison.