Hong Kong’s Squeeze on Tiananmen Crackdown Commemorations

Reuters

11:31 JST, January 22, 2026

HONG KONG, Jan 22 (Reuters) – Hong Kong’s High Court will begin on Thursday a landmark subversion trial of the leaders of a group that once organised annual commemorations of Beijing’s Tiananmen Square crackdown on student-led pro-democracy protests in 1989.

The vigil has been blocked since 2020, first because of COVID-19 curbs and then a national security law imposed that year following pro-democracy protests in 2019.

Chow Hang-tung, 40, the former vice-chair of the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, and two other former Alliance leaders, Lee Cheuk-yan and Albert Ho, face up to 10 years in jail for “inciting subversion of state power” under the security law.