{"id":76046,"date":"2026-01-22T08:45:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T23:45:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/jan\/22\/hong-kong-national-security-trial-pro-democracy-activists-chow-hang-tung-lee-cheuk-yan-albert-ho"},"modified":"2026-01-22T08:45:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T23:45:06","slug":"hong-kong-national-security-trial-of-three-pro-democracy-activists-to-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=76046","title":{"rendered":"Hong Kong national security trial of three pro-democracy activists to open"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Chow Hang-tung, Lee Cheuk-yan and Albert Ho, who led Tiananmen Square vigils, accused of inciting subversion <\/p>\n<p>The national security trial of three pro-democracy activists who organised an annual memorial in Hong Kong to mark the Tiananmen Square massacre is to begin on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/article\/2024\/may\/28\/hong-kong-police-arrest-six-people-under-new-security-law\">Chow Hang-tung<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/apr\/07\/hong-kong-activists-plead-guilty-but-say-history-will-absolve-us\">Lee Cheuk-yan<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2023\/mar\/21\/hong-kong-police-put-bailed-pro-democracy-leader-albert-ho-back-under-arrest\">Albert Ho<\/a> are charged with inciting subversion under Hong Kong\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2024\/mar\/23\/hong-kongs-new-national-security-law-comes-into-force\">national security law<\/a>. Their trial is one of the most high-profile national security cases to be heard in Hong Kong since Beijing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/jun\/30\/china-passes-controversial-hong-kong-national-security-law\">imposed the law in 2020<\/a>. The defendants face a maximum penalty of 10 years\u2019 imprisonment if convicted. The law has a near-100% conviction rate.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/jan\/22\/hong-kong-national-security-trial-pro-democracy-activists-chow-hang-tung-lee-cheuk-yan-albert-ho\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chow Hang-tung, Lee Cheuk-yan and Albert Ho, who led Tiananmen Square vigils, accused of inciting subversion The national security trial of three pro-democracy activists who organised an annual memorial in Hong Kong to mark the Tiananmen Square massacr&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3580,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,50,48,80,431,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-china","category-hong-kong","category-protest","category-tiananmen-square-protests-1989","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3580"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76046"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76055,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76046\/revisions\/76055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}