⚖️ Chow Hang-tung|鄒幸彤
Related: Hong Kong Alliance | 8964 Museum | The Hong Kong 47 | ⚖️ Jimmy Lai
Chow Hang-tung at a June 4th commemoration, wearing a "毋忘" ("never forget") headband. Photo: Iris Tong / Voice of America, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
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Chow Hang-tung (鄒幸彤, born 24 January 1985) is a Hong Kong barrister and the last public leader of the Hong Kong Alliance, the group that for three decades organised the city's June 4th candlelight vigil for the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown. When the vigil was banned in 2020 and the Alliance's chair and vice-chair jailed in 2021, Chow became its convenor and its most defiant voice — urging Hongkongers to remember June 4th on their own, and answering each prosecution from the dock rather than with silence. She has been behind bars since September 2021, convicted across a series of cases that together trace the dismantling of Tiananmen memory in Hong Kong.
From geophysics to the Bar
Chow studied geophysics at the University of Cambridge, taking BA, MSc and MPhil degrees, and worked briefly for an NGO before abandoning doctoral studies and returning to Hong Kong in 2010 to study law. She completed her PCLL at the University of Hong Kong and was called to the Bar in 2016. She joined the Alliance's standing committee and became its vice-chair in December 2015, combining a human-rights legal practice with the annual work of staging the Victoria Park vigil.
A string of prosecutions
As the vigil was criminalised and the Alliance dismantled, Chow was prosecuted in case after case — several of them for simply calling on people to commemorate.
| Case | Charge | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 vigil | Inciting/taking part in an unauthorised assembly (the first banned June 4th vigil) | Convicted 13 Dec 2021 — 12 months |
| 2021 vigil | Inciting others to take part in an unauthorised assembly | Convicted 4 Jan 2022 — 15 months (partly consecutive). Acquitted on appeal Dec 2022, but the acquittal was overturned and the conviction restored in 2024 |
| "Foreign agent" refusal | Failing to comply with a police demand for information (the Alliance disputed that it was a "foreign agent") | Convicted Mar 2023 — 4.5 months |
| Incitement to subversion | Conspiring to incite subversion under the National Security Law (the Alliance's "end one-party dictatorship" platform) | Convicted 21 Aug 2026; sentenced 11 Sept 2026 — 7 years 3 months |
The incitement-to-subversion case is the most serious. On 21 August 2026, three national-security judges convicted Chow, Alliance chair Lee Cheuk-yan and the organisation itself of spreading the call to "end one-party dictatorship" (結束一黨專政). On 11 September 2026 the court jailed Chow for 7 years 3 months — the heaviest term of the three (Lee received 7 years; founding member Albert Ho 5 years 2 months) — placing the case in the higher "serious nature" band despite acknowledging it involved "no violence or the threat of violence." With about five years already served on remand, she has roughly two years left to serve. The fuller story is on the Hong Kong Alliance and 8964 Museum pages.
Defiance from the dock
Chow has repeatedly represented herself, turning her hearings into public statements rather than pleas for leniency. At her January 2022 sentencing she argued she had meant only to "incite others not to forget June 4," not to gather a crowd; the judge called that "simply unbelievable" and barred her from reading the memoirs of Tiananmen victims in mitigation. At her 28 August 2026 mitigation hearing she declined to plead for a lighter sentence, saying the conviction itself showed that "pursuing democracy is a crime," and at the 11 September sentencing she offered no mitigation at all. In custody she has kept up the fight in smaller ways — in August 2024 launching a legal challenge after prison authorities withheld four books they deemed "anti-authority."
Recognition abroad
As her prosecutions mounted, Chow became an internationally recognised symbol of Hong Kong's shrinking freedoms. In 2023 alone she was awarded the Franco-German Prize for Human Rights and the Rule of Law, the CCBE Human Rights Award from the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe, and South Korea's Gwangju Prize for Human Rights — honours accepted on her behalf while she remained in a Hong Kong jail. The UN, rights groups and several governments have repeatedly called for her release.
Sources
- HKFP: Tiananmen vigil activists sentenced up to 7 years 3 months (11 Sept 2026)
- HKFP: In full — Chow Hang-tung's mitigation (28 Aug 2026)
- HKFP: Tiananmen vigil activists convicted (21 Aug 2026)
- RFA: Court verdict aims to erase Tiananmen memory (25 Aug 2026)
- Al Jazeera: Hong Kong court hands stiff jail sentences to Tiananmen vigil activists (11 Sept 2026)
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