Lawyer Chow Hang-tung was charged in 2020 for participating in a peaceful vigil commemorating protesters killed in the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, and charged again in 2021 after she asked people on social media to light candles in memory of the victims. She was jailed for 22 months for daring to commemorate their lives.

Chow also faces a potential 10-year prison sentence for “inciting subversion” under the NSL over her role as former leader of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, which organised the city’s annual Tiananmen candlelight vigil for 30 years.

Despite her imprisonment, Chow has continued to use her legal knowledge to defend rights, including in 2022 to secure the lifting of reporting restrictions on bail hearings. Most recently, Chow mounted a legal challenge to rules that require women – but not men – to wear long trousers year-round in Hong Kong prisons, where temperatures regularly exceed 30 degrees Celsius in summer. In the past, Chow has suffered retaliation for such advocacy, including repeated periods of solitary confinement.

“Amnesty International and many others have highlighted the dangerous human rights flaws in the Hong Kong’s National Security Law. But rather than taking steps to repeal the law, the Hong Kong government has instead doubled down by ramming through an equally-repressive local national security legislation (referred to as ‘Article 23’) in March of this year – increasing jail times for peaceful activism, even if it happens outside Hong Kong or mainland China,” Sarah Brooks from Amnesty International said.

Amnesty is calling on the Hong Kong authorities to:

• Drop all charges against and release Chow Hang-tung immediately and unconditionally, as she was charged solely for peacefully exercising her rights;
• End the practice of bringing criminal charges against those who have simply exercised their right to freedom of expression or other human rights;
• Review and amend all laws and regulations, and end all related measures, including Article 23, that violate the exercise of human rights, in particular to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association.