This is the kind of thing that servants of the Chinese Communist Party regard as presenting a royal flush when engaged in courtroom persecutions of the innocent: “Three Hong Kong Tiananmen vigil activists had sought the end of the Chinese Communist Party’s rule in the name of ‘so-called democracy,’ prosecutors have argued during a high-profile national security trial” (Hong Kong Free Press, January 27, 2026).
The three Tiananmen vigil activists actually spoke in favor of democracy. It can be proved.
The court also heard on Tuesday that the prosecution will seek to apply the co-conspirator rule—a legal principle allowing statements by one conspirator to be used against others—in the case against Lee Cheuk-yan, Chow Hang-tung, and the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China.
Lee, Chow, and the Alliance stand accused of inciting subversion under the Beijing-imposed national security law. They have pleaded not guilty to the offence, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years behind bars.
Albert Ho, a co-defendant and former chair of the Alliance, pleaded guilty when the trial opened last week. [Lee, Ho, and Chow are shown above.]
The prosecution has accused the Alliance of advocating for the end of the CCP’s leadership in China, which it argues breached the country’s constitution and amounted to inciting subversion.
The Alliance was behind Hong Kong’s decades-long annual candlelit vigils which commemorated those killed in the Tiananmen crackdown. On June 4, 1989, months of student-led demonstrations were ended as the Chinese military crackdown down on protesters in Beijing. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, were killed.
On Tuesday, Ned Lai—the lead prosecutor in the case—continued reading out the prosecution’s opening statement, outlining the accusations against the activists and the Alliance. The court saw footage of wide-ranging past remarks by Lee, Chow, and Ho—some years old.
The court heard that, in May 2019, Lee told a US congressional hearing that his generation “want[ed] to change China” and “to fight for democracy in China.”
Lee also said during a protest in May 2020 that the Alliance’s demand was the democratisation of China, adding that “a dictatorship should not exist” in the country.
Etc. The idiot prosecutors don’t realize that they are indicting themselves, not the defendants. “Here is the proof that the defendants preferred freedom to tyranny! It’s on tape!!!” Okay, dude.
What is a “vigil activist”? In this case, someone who remembers the victims of the slaughter at Tiananmen Square while holding a candle and hoping for better days, for a future without the tyranny. The three being especially harassed by the court were organizers of an annual vigil attended by tens of thousands of Hongkongers, including, reports the Guardian, 180,000 people in 2019.
Like Lee, Ho, and Chow, all reasonable, freedom-loving persons want the tyranny of the Chinese Communist Party to end and to be replaced by democracy and freedom. But we are not all living under CCP rule, a circumstance in which one must have special courage to say so.
