2 anti-China activists have case to answer in subversion trial, court rules

Two former leaders of a now-disbanded alliance behind Hong Kong’s annual Tiananmen Square vigil have a case to answer in a high-profile trial after judges ruled the evidence supported prosecutors’ allegations that the activists incited others to overthrow the Communist Party of China leadership.Three High Court judges on Friday found that the evidence appeared to suggest Lee Cheuk-yan and Chow Hang-tung committed a subversion offence as leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China.But the judges, who delivered the ruling at West Kowloon Court, rejected the prosecution’s claim that the party’s leadership could not be changed under the Chinese constitution as a “superficial” argument.The court previously spent three days hearing oral arguments from lawyers regarding the strength of the prosecution’s evidence and the applicable legal principles in the case of inciting subversion under the Beijing-decreed national security law.Prosecutors alleged that former alliance chairman Lee, 69, and vice-chairwoman Chow, 41, persisted in promoting an end to “one-party dictatorship”, one of the alliance’s five operational objectives, from July 2020 until the organisation’s dissolution in September 2021.