Interesting – how will HK and Beijing respond to this?
HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong’s top court on Thursday overturned the convictions of three former organizers of an annual vigil in remembrance of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown over their refusal to provide information to police, marking a rare victory for the city’s pro-democracy activists.
Chow Hang-tung, Tang Ngok-kwan and Tsui Hon-kwong — core members of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China — were convicted in 2023 during Beijing’s crackdown on the city’s pro-democracy movement. They received a sentence of 4 1/2 months each and have already served their terms.
The alliance was long known for organizing candlelight vigils in the city on the anniversary of the Chinese military’s crushing of pro-democracy protests in Beijing in 1989. But it voted to disband in 2021 under the shadow of a sweeping national security law imposed by China.
Critics said the shutdown and the case showed that the city’s Western-style civil liberties were shrinking despite promises they would be kept intact when the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
Read more at
