Hong Kong activist Chow Hang-tung will serve the remainder of a 15-month jail term for inciting others to take part in an unauthorised assembly relating to a Tiananmen crackdown vigil in 2021, after the city’s top court overturned her acquittal last month.
Wearing a military green jacket and her hair tied up, Chow – who has been detained since September 2021 on separate national security charges – appeared at the High Court on Wednesday afternoon. She beamed and waved at the public gallery, and spoke with a lawyer through the glass pane of the defendant dock before proceedings began.
Judge Judianna Barnes said the reasons behind her rejection of Chow’s appeal against her sentence could be read about in a written judgement, which was handed out to the defence, the prosecution, and reporters. The court was dismissed in around 30 seconds.
The Court of Final Appeal earlier heard that Chow still has around four and a half months in her jail term, which was handed down in 2022.
Barnes’ decision caps a lengthy case that began in the city’s lowest court in June 2021, when Chow was charged with inciting others to join an unauthorised assembly. According to case details, she published social media posts saying that lighting a candle was not a crime, and an op-ed in Ming Pao with similar messages after police rejected a request to hold the annual vigil citing Covid-19.
At the time, Chow was vice-chair of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China. The group – which has since disbanded – held vigils to mark the Tiananmen crackdown anniversary every year at Victoria Park, until police banned it on Covid-19 grounds in 2020 and 2021.
Chow pleaded not guilty before a magistrate. She was convicted in January 2022 and jailed for 15 months. The human rights lawyer later appealed against the conviction and sentencing, and won in December that year.
Government prosecutors then challenged her acquittal. Last month, the top court ruled in favour of the government and convicted her. The five-judge panel handed the sentencing appeal back to the High Court to be handled.
Detained since September 2021
In the written judgement, Barnes said she saw “no reason” to intervene on the magistrate’s delivery of Chow’s 15-month sentence.
She said she did not accept Chow’s view that the Covid-19 pandemic was not serious at the time, or arguments relating to freedom of expression, as a reason for a lighter sentence.
Barnes also referred to the fact that the magistrate had set a starting sentence of 12 months, but added three months considering that Chow had committed the offence while awaiting trial for a case relating to the Tiananmen vigil in 2020, which was also banned on Covid-19 grounds. She said there was “nothing inappropriate” about this addition as Chow had disregarded the law and re-offended.
When Chow was sentenced by the magistrate in January 2022, the human rights lawyer was already serving a 12-month prison sentence over inciting participation and taking part in the 2020 vigil.
Chow, one of Hong Kong’s most well-known pro-democracy activists, has been detained since September 2021, when she was charged under the national security law alongside activists Lee Cheuk-yan and Albert Ho. All three – who are accused of inciting subversion – were leaders of the Alliance.
Their trial will begin no earlier than November, judges said during a High Court hearing on Monday. Similar to past and ongoing national security trials, the one against the Alliance will be heard before a panel of three designated national security judges and no jury, a departure from Hong Kong’s common law tradition.
The activists face up to life imprisonment if convicted under the security law, which was imposed by Beijing in June 2020 following months of anti-extradition protests and unrest.
Beijing inserted national security legislation directly into Hong Kong’s mini-constitution in June 2020 following a year of pro-democracy protests and unrest. It criminalised subversion, secession, collusion with foreign forces and terrorist acts – broadly defined to include disruption to transport and other infrastructure. The move gave police sweeping new powers and led to hundreds of arrests amid new legal precedents, while dozens of civil society groups disappeared. The authorities say it restored stability and peace to the city, rejecting criticism from trade partners, the UN and NGOs.
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