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Activist Chow Hang-tung in May 2021
Photo:
Vincent Yu / dpa
An imprisoned civil rights activist in Hong Kong has been sentenced to another 15 months in prison for commemorating the 1989 crackdown on the democracy movement in China.
A court in China's Special Administrative Region sentenced Chow Hang-tung on Tuesday after the 36-year-old lawyer was found guilty of inciting participation in the 2021 banned event.
A newspaper article and two posts on social networks were used as evidence, as reported by Hong Kong media.
Chow Hang-tung was vice chairman of the now-defunct Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, which organized the annual commemoration.
The candle devotion for the victims of the June 4, 1989 massacre had long been a thorn in the side of the Chinese leadership.
Activist is already in custody
In the past two years, the commemoration had been banned because of the pandemic, but critics only saw it as a pretext.
Since Beijing passed a harsh "security law" for Hong Kong in the summer of 2020, the government and judiciary have been taking action against the democratic opposition.
They rely on the vague law directed against activities that China sees as subversive, separatist, terrorist or conspiratorial.
The activist is already in custody on a similar allegation in connection with the memorial the year before.
With the new sentence, her prison term will be extended to 22 months.
Chow Hang-tung belongs to a larger group of civil rights activists who are either already in custody or awaiting trial.
Many opposition members also went abroad for fear of prosecution.
With the "Security Act", the government is also increasingly taking action against critical media that have to close one after the other.
The online publication "Citizen News" ceased operations on Tuesday.
The reason for the step in the announcement on Sunday was the "deteriorating environment for the media," which is why the safety of its employees can no longer be guaranteed.
The pro-democracy medium "Stand News" only closed at the end of December after Hong Kong authorities arrested several leading journalists.
In June, the pro-democracy Apple Daily was forcibly closed after the tabloid was targeted by the authorities.
Its founder, Jimmy Lai, is in jail.
height / dpa