Hong Kong’s top court 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.
Judges at the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal unanimously ruled in the trio’s favor. Chief Justice Andrew Cheung announced the decision in court.
The prosecution needed to prove that the alliance was a foreign agent, the judges wrote, adding that the lower courts “fell into error” when they based their rulings on the police commissioner saying he had reasonable grounds to believe this was fact.
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