Veteran Hong Kong trade union leader Lee Cheuk-yan is awaiting sentence after being convicted of inciting others to subvert state power under Hong Kong’s national security law. At the court hearing today (28 August), his counsel argued the case concerned peaceful political advocacy rather than any concrete attempt to overthrow the authorities.
Lee, a former Legislative Council member and prominent trade unionist who has spent decades campaigning for workers’ rights, democracy and justice, was convicted alongside Chow Hang-tung, former vice-chair of the disbanded Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China. Former vice-chair Albert Ho, who pleaded guilty earlier, is also awaiting sentence.
The court adjourned the hearing on Friday(28 August) and said sentencing would take place within two weeks.
Lee’s counsel: a slogan for political advocacy rather than attempts to disrupt
Senior counsel Erik Shum, representing Lee Cheuk-yan and Albert Ho, argued that the case should be treated as falling at the lower end of the sentencing scale.
The court had accepted that the defendants had promoted their cause through peaceful and non-violent means over many years, Shum said. The call to “end one-party rule” amounted to political advocacy and slogans, he argued, rather than a plan for action.
There had been no operational instructions, roadmap or timetable, and no evidence that anyone had acted as a result of the Alliance’s campaign to undermine the fundamental system established under China’s constitution, he said.
The Alliance had promoted the slogan for more than 30 years, Shum noted, adding: “The Communist Party has remained very secure all these years.”
He also argued that the prosecution had ultimately failed to establish that the defendants had sought to overthrow the central authorities, making the case fundamentally one about political advocacy rather than any concrete attempt to disrupt state institutions.
Lee’s decades of public service
The court also considered how Lee’s long record of public service should be treated in sentencing.
Lee served for 21 years as a Legislative Council member and has spent decades in Hong Kong’s labour and democracy movements. Shum argued that these contributions should continue to be recognised and should not simply be cancelled out by previous convictions for unlawful assembly.
Judge Alex Lee used the image of a “piggy bank” to describe previous good character and public achievements, asking whether an account could eventually be emptied when good deeds put money into the bank and offences took money out.
Shum rejected the premise.
“I have never understood nor agreed that a person’s historical achievements can only be drawn upon once,” he said.
Chow: Seeking democracy deserves no punishment
Chow, a barrister and long-time democracy campaigner, used her mitigation address to challenge the reasoning of the court’s 206-page judgment, saying it amounted to the proposition that “the pursuit of democracy is a crime”.
“Seeking democracy is the most legitimate endeavour; there is nothing in it that deserves punishment,” she said.
Chow said she would not ask the court for a reduced sentence because “we should not spend a single day in prison”. Her commitment to seeking justice over the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown and to ending one-party rule, she said, would not change whether she was behind bars or outside.
She described the Alliance’s five-point platform as indivisible, saying it represented both a public commitment and a vow made to the victims remembered at its annual candlelit vigils.
“If the law truly cannot accommodate our convictions, then we would rather be criminals than false people,” Chow said. “We do not want to spend our lives living in lies and constantly denying what we believe and think.”
Even if the court could imprison them, she added, it could not imprison the demand for democracy.
“The high walls will only become a bigger megaphone,” she said, arguing that the prosecution had given the call to end one-party rule a global audience that it did not previously have.
At one point, judge Alex Lee joked: “Shouldn’t you thank us, then?”
“Yes, that’s right. Thank you very much to the court,” Chow replied.
Photo: HK Free Press