HONG KONG (AP) — A Hong Kong court on Monday rejected an earlier request Tiananmen vigil The organizer’s attempt to have her indictment quashed and move forward with a landmark case is widely seen as part of a years-long crackdown on the city’s pro-democracy movement.
Zhao Hangtung, the former leader of the group that organized a decades-long vigil to commemorate China’s 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, has been arrested. Shipped in 2021 with Incitement to sabotage, which carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. She was charged along with two other former leaders of the group, Albert Ho and Lee Cheuk-yan.
Their case was brought under a national security law imposed by Beijing in 2020 to suppress mass anti-government protests in 2019. The trio were accused of inciting others to challenge the Communist Party leadership by illegal means.
Zhao, a lawyer and self-defender, said the indictment was unacceptably vague because authorities did not specify an illegal means. She said this could amount to a “blanket charge.”
Prosecutor Ned Lai said illegal means meant those contrary to China’s Constitution, which stipulates that Party leadership is the hallmark of socialism with Chinese characteristics and that harming the socialist system is prohibited.
The three-judge panel, approved by the government to oversee the case, ruled against Zhao. Judge Alex Lee said the panel would issue its opinion in January.
Zhao appeared calm when she learned of the decision and smiled at the crowd before leaving the courtroom.
The Tiananmen protest, organized by the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of China’s National Democratic Movements, was the only large-scale event Public commemoration From a 1989 crackdown in China for decades until authorities banned it in 2020, citing anti-epidemic measures.
The group came under increasing pressure from the police I opened an investigationHe accused her of being a foreign agent. The group rejected these accusations He refused to cooperate. Zhao, Hu and Li were later charged with violating the national security law.
In 2021 alliance members Vote for the solution.
It was Zhao and two other core members of the group Convicted in 2023 For not providing the authorities with the information received Sentence 4 1/2 months all. But in March the trio Their convictions were overturned in the city’s Supreme Court, marking a rare judicial victory for the city’s pro-democracy activists.
A trial in the national security case is scheduled for January 22.
Since pandemic-era gathering restrictions were lifted, so has the park where the vigil was previously held It was occupied by a carnival in memory of Tiananmen Display Chinese foods and products.
Fernando Cheung, Amnesty International’s overseas spokesman in Hong Kong, said Monday’s court decision showed that authorities were “using the broad concept of ‘national security’ as a weapon to suppress freedom of expression with impunity.”
“Those commemorating the Tiananmen crackdown should not have been prosecuted,” he said, calling for the release of those detained for what he described as their peaceful exercise of their right to freedom of expression.
The Hong Kong government insists the city’s security law has restored stability to the city after the 2019 protests.
Source link
