A panel of three national security judges in Hong Kong convicted three former leaders of the Alliance in Support of the Patriotic Democratic Movements of China of inciting subversion on September 11, handing down sentences of up to seven years and three months and fining the disbanded group HK$1.5 million.
The ruling is the latest application of the National Security Law that Beijing imposed on Hong Kong in June 2020, according to the EFE news agency. The Alliance organized annual vigils in Victoria Park for nearly three decades, banned since 2020, and was dissolved in September 2021, according to Al Jazeera. The court found it responsible, along with its former leaders, for acts committed between July 1, 2020, and September 8, 2021; the maximum penalty for that offense is ten years. For Mexican companies with operations or supply chains in Asia, the case is a data point on how the current legal framework is applied in a first-tier financial hub.
The three-judge national security panel of the West Kowloon courts set the highest sentence for lawyer Chow Hang-tung, at seven years and three months; former legislator Lee Cheuk-yan received seven years and Albert Ho Chun-yan five years and two months, after pleading guilty. Chow and Lee pleaded not guilty and were found guilty on August 21, according to EFE. In its reasoning, the court described the facts as grave in nature and noted that the case did not involve violence or threats or a concrete plan to achieve the group's objectives. Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee maintained that those convicted did not retract after the law took effect and acted with the intent to subvert state power, according to the government's official portal.
The following day, Police Commissioner Joe Chow said there is no red line for approving public meetings and that risks and forms of resistance he described as soft persist, according to the South China Morning Post. Payment of the HK$1.5 million fine, with a three-month deadline, is the next concrete due date in the case.
This article was written with the assistance of artificial intelligence from verified sources and reviewed by a human editor before publication.