Retrial for Hong Kong human rights lawyer

Hong Kong’s top court on Thursday overturned the acquittal of activist and human rights lawyer Chow Hang Tung of inciting other people to join an unauthorised vigil to remember victims of China’s 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.

Chow won a high court appeal in December 2022 against her conviction and sentence over the banned candlelight vigil in 2021, which commemorated victims of the crackdown on pro-democracy activists in and around Tiananmen Square.

However, a panel of five judges including chief justice Andrew Cheung, permanent judges Roberto Ribeiro, Joseph Fok and Johnson Lam, and nonpermanent judge Anthony Gleeson ruled unanimously in favour of the prosecution on Thursday. Now Chow faces a retrial.

Though the high court overturned her conviction on the inciting unauthorised assembly charge, Chow was denied bail and remained in jail as she faces a separate national security charge. Chow has been held since September 2021 at a maximum security women’s prison and continues behind bars to defy Beijing’s campaign to subjugate the city.

Chow, a human-rights lawyer, was the former vicechair of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, a now disbanded group that previously organised the annual candlelight vigil.

Chow was charged with incitement to subversion, alongside two former Alliance leaders Albert Ho and Lee Cheuk-yan, who also remain in custody awaiting trial. The security trial is expected to begin in the second half of this year. The charge of incitement to subversion carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.

The national security law punishes subversion, collusion with foreign forces and terrorism with up to life in jail.

Beijing imposed the law on the financial hub in 2020.

The Hong Kong and Chinese governments said the law, criticised by some Western governments and human rights groups, is necessary to restore stability after antigovernment protests in 2019.

NATIONAL SECURITY LAW PUNISHES SUBVERSION, COLLUSION WITH FOREIGN FORCES AND TERRORISM WITH UP TO LIFE IN JAIL