A court in Hong Kong on Wednesday ruled that a police decision to ban a vigil to commemorate victims of the Tiananmen Square crackdown was unlawful.

The decision is an unusual rebuke of law enforcement authorities that have banned the annual Tiananmen vigils over the last three years, citing coronavirus restrictions.

What did the court decide?

The ruling came as the court overturned the conviction of jailed democracy activist Chow Hang-tung.

Chow was the former vice-chairperson of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, which disbanded last September after the arrests of its main leaders.

The Alliance organized Hong Kong's annual candlelight vigils for the 1989 crackdown in and around Beijing's Tiananmen Square. Hong Kong had been the only place in China where mass remembrances of the event were tolerated.

The 37-year-old was originally convicted and sentenced to 15 months in jail in January for inciting others to take part in an unauthorized assembly.

She was found guilty of publishing social media posts and newspaper articles that urged people to take part in the vigil last year, which a lower court said amounted to inciting others to defy the ban.

Chow had told members of the public to "light candles to seek justice for the dead."

In a written judgment, High Court judge Judianna Barnes said that while Chow did appeal to people to assemble at the Victoria Park venue, this was not illegal because the legality of the police ban had not been established.

Barnes said the police had not "proactively and seriously considered" ways to make a public gathering possible, as is legally required.

National security law charges loom

Chow had nearly finished serving the original sentence for her unauthorized assembly charge in any case, but she remains remanded in custody for two other national security charges.

Hong Kong's new national security law — which redefined and lowered the legal bar for charges such as subversion, collusion with foreign forces, and terrorism — was imposed by Beijing in 2020. Among the possible penalties is life imprisonment.

Chow has pleaded not guilty to the security charges. The alleged offenses include inciting subversion and failing to comply with a police order to submit information about the group's membership, finances, and activities.

Both Beijing and the government of the special administrative region of Hong Kong claim the law was necessary to restore and maintain stability after anti-government protests in the territory in 2019. Still, politicians in Hong Kong failed to secure support for it in the city's own assembly.

Hundreds, possibly more than 1,000 people were killed when soldiers and tanks chased protesters and onlookers in the streets around Tiananmen Square in 1989. A secret British diplomatic cable put the possible number of dead at up to 10,000.

The pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai is also among those in prison for defying bans on the vigils, in his case for the event held in 2020.

rc/msh (AFP, Reuters)