HK activist Chow gets new jail term
HONG KONG: Jailed democracy activist Chow Hang-tung accused Hong Kong’s courts yesterday of criminalising speech and helping authorities erase the Tiananmen crackdown as she was convicted a second time for inciting people to commemorate the deadly event.
Chow, a 36-year-old lawyer who has represented herself at multiple court hearings with often fiery denunciations from the dock, is a former leader of the Hong Kong Alliance.
The now-disbanded group used to organise the city’s huge annual candlelight vigils to mourn those killed in Beijing on June 4, 1989 when China sent in troops to crush democracy protests.
Hong Kong police banned the last two vigils citing the coronavirus and security fears and the courts have already jailed multiple activists who defied that ban in 2020, including Chow.
Chow was also arrested on the morning of June 4 last year over two pieces she published calling on residents to light candles and mark the crackdown anniversary.
Yesterday, a court sentenced her to 15 months in jail after ruling that her articles amounted to inciting others to defy the police ban.
“The message this verdict sends is that lighting a candle is guilty, that words are guilty,” Chow told the court.
“The only way to defend free speech is to continue to express,” she added.
“The real crime is to cover for murderers with laws and to delete victims in the name of state.”
Hong Kong was formerly the only place in China where mass commemoration of Tiananmen was tolerated but Beijing has been remoulding the city in its authoritarian image after huge and sometimes violent democracy protests in 2019.
Chow has proved to be an outspoken defendant throughout her prosecutions.