Why are Hong Kong’s Tiananmen vigil organisers facing prison?

Two prominent Hong Kong activists who helped organise annual vigils commemorating China’s deadly 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown have been convicted of inciting subversion under the city’s national security law.

On Friday, Hong Kong’s High Court found former legislator Lee Cheuk-yan, 69, and lawyer Chow Hang-tung, 41, guilty of what is one of the most serious offences under the sweeping security law imposed by Beijing in 2020.

The pair, who pleaded not guilty to inciting subversion, have been held in detention since they were charged in September 2021. They face up to 10 years in prison, with sentencing to take place at a later date. A third defendant, veteran activist Albert Ho, 74, pleaded guilty before the trial began.

The case is among Hong Kong’s highest-profile prosecutions under the national security law and has renewed scrutiny of the erosion of political freedoms in the territory as Beijing expands its influence there. Here is what we know.

Lee and Chow were leading members of the now-disbanded, pro-democracy action group Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, which for decades organised Hong Kong’s annual candlelight vigil commemorating those killed in the Tiananmen crackdown.

The alliance was established in May 1989 as protests calling for political reform in China gathered momentum in Beijing and other cities. Over the following three decades, it campaigned for accountability over the brutal crackdown on protests, the release of political dissidents and democratic reform in China.

Lee, a former Hong Kong politician and veteran labour activist, served as the alliance’s chairman, while Chow, a barrister, was its vice chairwoman.

Prosecutors accused the alliance and its leaders of inciting others to subvert state power. Central to the case was the organisation’s longstanding slogan calling to “end one-party” system in China.