Hong Kong authorities on Thursday opened a national security trial against three democracy activists who organized the city’s long-running candlelight vigils commemorating China’s 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.
The case marks the latest prosecution linked to the dismantling of Hong Kong’s once-permitted culture of public remembrance.
It targets former leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, the group that organized annual June 4 vigils for three decades before authorities banned the gatherings in 2020.
According to a report by Agence France-Presse, prosecutors accused the activists of using the vigils to call for an end to Communist Party rule in China.
Hong Kong was once the only place on Chinese soil where mass commemorations of the killings in Tiananmen Square were allowed.
The ban on the vigils followed the imposition of a sweeping national security law in Hong Kong after months of sometimes violent pro-democracy protests.
The three defendants and the Alliance are charged with “incitement to subversion,” an offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison. The trial is expected to last 75 days.
As proceedings opened, the defendants smiled and waved to supporters seated in the public gallery before being led into the dock.
Two of the accused, Chow Hang-tung, 40, and Lee Cheuk-yan, 68, have been detained since 2021 and pleaded not guilty at the start of the hearing.
Prosecutors on Thursday focused on the third defendant, Albert Ho, 74, who has pleaded guilty.
Ho “consistently advocated and promoted the Alliance’s stance of ‘ending one-party rule’” and continued to do so after the security law took effect, prosecutor Ned Lai told the court.
The case is being heard by a panel of three judges selected from a list approved by Hong Kong’s leader. Authorities earlier ruled the trial would proceed without a jury, a departure from the city’s usual practice, and barred overseas witnesses from testifying remotely.
Rights groups condemned the prosecution. Amnesty International said the trial was “not about national security — it is about rewriting history,” while Human Rights Watch urged authorities to drop all charges and release the activists.
U.S.-based Tiananmen survivor Zhou Fengsuo told AFP he was “deeply concerned” for the defendants, saying the vigils “represent the conscience of a free Hong Kong that was destroyed.”
The trial follows last month’s conviction of Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai, a case that drew international condemnation.
The Hong Kong Alliance was founded in May 1989, when the city was under British rule, to support democracy and anti-corruption protests in Beijing.
After Chinese authorities sent tanks and soldiers to crush the movement the following month, the group spent three decades urging Beijing to accept responsibility, free dissidents, and pursue democratic reform.
Its annual June 4 candlelight vigils in Victoria Park routinely drew thousands, even after Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule in 1997.
During Thursday’s hearing, prosecutors read excerpts from Ho’s past speeches, including remarks made at a 2015 vigil criticizing Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
“Freedom and democracy did not improve but instead regressed… Xi’s Chinese Dream became the Chinese people’s nightmare,” Ho was quoted as saying.
Prosecutors also cited Ho’s 2018 remarks that in a democratic China, “naturally one-party rule has to end, (which) doesn’t mean eliminating the Communist Party, it has the right to join elections.”
Although Hong Kong authorities say the national security law has no retroactive effect, prosecutors have increasingly relied on pre-2020 statements as evidence in such cases.
About 70 people queued in cold weather for seats in the public gallery on Thursday, while dozens of police officers were deployed around the court building.
Simon Ng, a retiree in his 60s, said the vigils once showed how Hong Kong’s political system was “fundamentally different from that of mainland China,” adding that the activists were “honourable” in supporting China’s democratization.
The trial will resume Friday for Lee and Chow. Ho, who will be sentenced at a later date, is not required to attend and has asked to be absent.
