Three former members of a Hong Kong group that organized annual vigils to mark China’s 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, were yesterday found guilty of not complying with a national security police request for information.
Chow Hang-tung (鄒幸彤), 38, a prominent Hong Kong democracy advocate and former vice-chairperson of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, was among those convicted by the magistrate court.
Two other former standing committee members of the alliance, Tang Ngok-kwan (鄧岳君) and Tsui Hon-kwong (徐漢光), were also found guilty.
Photo: Reuters
The now-disbanded alliance was the main organizer of Hong Kong’s June 4 candlelight vigil for people killed in the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Every year it drew tens of thousands of people.
Since Hong Kong’s massive pro-democracy protests in 2019, authorities have not allowed the vigil to take place on COVID-19-related grounds.
The alliance disbanded in September 2021 after authorities arrested several senior members of the group, including Chow.
The trial started late last year, more than a year after the defendants were arrested. The alliance was accused by prosecutor Ivan Cheung (張大有) of being a “foreign agent” for an unnamed group, after allegedly receiving HK$20,000 (US$2,548) from it.
Chow denied this in court, saying it was an independent civil society group run by Hong Kongers, and that the case amounted to “political persecution.”
“The existence of an independent organization like us that can check power is essential to the security of a nation, not a threat,” she told the court.
Magistrate Peter Law (羅德泉), who was hand-picked to hear national security cases by Hong Kong’s Beijing-backed leader, said in a written judgement that it was necessary for the police to “ascertain the background” of the group given its political activities and “nexus of interactions with local and non-local organizations and people.”
Sentencing is expected on Saturday with a maximum jail term of six months for this particular offense.
Chow has already served two prison terms for unlawful assembly linked to her involvement in organizing Tiananmen commemoration events, but still faces a separate, graver charge of subverting state power through the alliance.
Some key details of the case, including the overseas organizations and individuals alleged to have ties to the alliance, were kept confidential after the prosecutor applied for “Public Interest Immunity,” saying that the disclosures would the harm public interest.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
RSS