Three former organizers of Hong Kong’s annual vigil in remembrance of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on pro-
democracy protests yesterday lost their bid to overturn their conviction over their refusal to provide authorities with information on the group under a National Security Law.
Chow Hang-tung (鄒幸彤), Tang Ngok-kwan (鄧岳君) and Tsui Hon-kwong (徐漢光) were core members of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China before it disbanded under the shadow of the Beijing-imposed law in 2021.
Photo: AP
Last year, they received a sentence of four-and-a-half months — widely seen as part of a crackdown on dissidents following massive pro-democracy protests in 2019.
The alliance was best known for organizing candlelight vigils in the territory on the anniversary of the Chinese military’s crushing of the 1989 protests in Beijing for decades.
Critics said its shutdown reflected that civil liberties were shrinking, despite promises they would be kept intact when the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
Before the group dissolved, police had sought details about its operations and finances in connection with alleged links to democracy groups overseas, accusing it of being a foreign agent.
However, the group refused to cooperate, arguing police were arbitrarily labeling pro-democracy organizations as foreign agents.
Judge Anna Lai (黎婉?) at the Court of Appeal yesterday dismissed their appeal, saying she was satisfied that there was ample evidence to support the convictions.
In December last year, their lawyer argued in an appeal hearing that the trio were denied a fair trial because they had not been shown the full evidence that suggested the group was a foreign agent.
During previous legal proceedings at the lower court, some crucial details, including the names of groups that were alleged to have links with the alliance, were redacted.
The court ordered a partial redaction of some information after prosecutors argued that a full disclosure would jeopardize an ongoing probe into national security cases.
Under the security law’s implementation rules, the police chief can request a range of information from a foreign agent.
Chow and two other former alliance leaders, Lee Cheuk-yan (李卓人) and Albert Ho (何俊仁), were charged with subversion in a separate case under the sweeping law in 2021. It was still unclear when their trial would begin.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS