After Hong Kong’s National Security Law conviction, his wife Elizabeth Tang recalls his years in prison, his health struggles and his determination to keep going — while urging people not to forget Lee or the cause he has spent decades defending.
When the guilty verdict was delivered, Lee Cheuk-yan remained composed.
On 21 August, at the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts, the veteran Hong Kong trade unionist was found guilty, alongside former Hong Kong Alliance vice-chair Chow Hang-tung, of “inciting others to subvert state power” under the National Security Law.
After the court adjourned the case until sentencing on 28 August, Lee looked towards his wife, Elizabeth Tang, and raised both arms above his head to form a heart. Tang responded in kind.
Outside the courtroom, she was calm as she spoke to reporters. But beneath the composure was anger and disappointment.
“I’m very disappointed, but I’m also very angry,” Tang said. “Because he is innocent.”
For more than five years, Lee has been separated from his family and colleagues, having first been imprisoned in April 2021 over his involvement in protests and assemblies. He was later detained in connection with the Hong Kong Alliance case and has spent almost five years on remand.
Tang described the latest verdict as deeply unfair and said she believed the court had not given sufficient weight to the defence’s arguments and evidence. She described the trial as “very one-sided”.
The immediate priority, she said, was the sentencing and mitigation hearing, scheduled for 28 August. The family would then consider whether to appeal.
But beyond the courtroom, Tang offered a more intimate portrait of a man who has spent more than five years behind bars and of how he has learned to live with a loss of freedom that neither he nor his family expected to last this long.
Lee has now spent more than five years in custody.
Lee’s time in custody dates back to April 2021, when he was sentenced over his participation in the 2019 protests and assemblies, including the 18 August rally. Further convictions relating to other demonstrations and a June 4 gathering brought his total sentence to 20 months, later reduced by six months on appeal.
At the time, Tang said, neither of them had considered leaving Hong Kong.
The Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions and the Hong Kong Alliance were still operating, and Lee believed that as long as the organisations remained, he had a responsibility to remain with them.
“As long as the union is still there, and the Alliance is still there, you are still a leader,” Tang recalled him saying. “How could you just leave?”
When Lee was charged in the Alliance case in 2021, he made an early decision not to plead guilty.
His goal is to make the most of every day
He knew that contesting the charge could expose him to a sentence of up to 10 years, but he did not want to admit to something he believed he had not done.
Tang understood his decision.
“I understand him. He didn’t want to plead guilty just to get a shorter sentence, and then spend the rest of his life feeling unsettled about it.”
For Lee, she said, the choice was ultimately a matter of principle. “Pursuing democracy and seeking justice for June 4 have always been his beliefs and goals. He feels that he was arrested not because he did something wrong.”
“He feels completely at peace with that.”
More than five years in custody have taken a physical toll. Lee has lost about eight kilograms. He also developed gallstones and underwent surgery last year.
Yet Tang said her husband remains remarkably calm.
Perhaps most strikingly, it is Lee who often reassures those outside the prison.
With his freedom severely restricted, he has learned to focus on what remains within his control.
“Every morning when he wakes up, the most important thing is to think about how to get through the day,” Tang said.
“His goal is to make the most of every day.”
His days in custody are filled with small routines. He reads, writes letters and does newspaper crossword puzzles. He has started learning French and developed an interest in watching NBA games.
June 4 will not disappear from memory
The story of Lee cannot easily be separated from the cause for which he spent decades campaigning.
As chair of the Hong Kong Alliance, he was part of the organisation that for more than three decades organised the annual June 4 candlelight vigil in Victoria Park, keeping alive public remembrance of those killed in the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown.
The Alliance has since been dissolved. The vigil is no longer held.
Lee remains in prison.
But Tang insists that the disappearance of the organisation does not mean the disappearance of June 4.
“The Alliance is gone, but June 4 is still there,” she said. “It still has not been vindicated.”
She hopes people will continue to remember the events of 1989 — and to remember Lee himself.
That appeal carries significance beyond the fate of one defendant.
Lee may have lost his freedom. The organisation he once led has been dissolved, and the public commemoration he helped sustain has disappeared from Hong Kong’s streets.
But, in Tang’s telling, he has not given up.
He continues to read, write, learn French, watch basketball and, above all, “make the most of every day”.
And Tang hopes the same determination will extend beyond the prison walls — that people will continue to remember Lee, and that June 4 will not disappear from memory.
Source: The Collective, Green Bean Media