September 8, 2026 — On the fifth anniversary of the arrest of Hong Kong barrister and human-rights defender Chow Hang-tung (鄒幸彤), the Free China Movement honors her courage, sacrifice and sustained commitment to historical truth, peaceful democratic advocacy and the rights of others.
Update — September 11, 2026: After this statement was published, Chow Hang-tung was sentenced to 7 years and 3 months’ imprisonment in the Hong Kong Alliance national-security case. Lee Cheuk-yan was sentenced to 7 years and Albert Ho to 5 years and 2 months. Release or sentence-completion dates remain under verification. The original September 8 text below is preserved as published so the historical record is not silently rewritten.
Chow was arrested on 8 September 2021 and later charged, together with other former leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, with “inciting subversion” under Hong Kong’s National Security Law. On 21 August 2026, the Hong Kong High Court convicted Chow Hang-tung and Lee Cheuk-yan. Sentencing remains pending.
For decades, the Hong Kong Alliance organized the city’s annual candlelight vigil commemorating the victims of the June Fourth 1989 crackdown. Chow’s public work has included defending labour rights, assisting people targeted for peaceful political activity and insisting that the memory of June Fourth must not be erased.
Five years of detention cannot erase the meaning of that work. It instead underscores the personal price demanded of people who continue to defend freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, historical memory and democratic participation.
The Free China Movement expresses its respect for Chow Hang-tung and for all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience who have endured imprisonment because they refused to abandon peaceful democratic principles. Courage is not measured only by public victory. It is also measured by the willingness to continue defending truth and human dignity when the personal cost is severe.
Our call
The Free China Movement calls on the Hong Kong authorities to release Chow Hang-tung immediately, quash convictions arising from peaceful expression and assembly, and end the use of national-security laws to punish nonviolent remembrance and democratic advocacy.
We further call on democratic governments, human-rights institutions, legal associations and civil society around the world to continue raising Chow’s case publicly and to insist that peaceful commemoration of June Fourth and advocacy for democratic reform are protected exercises of fundamental rights.
Human Rights Watch has called for the August 2026 convictions to be quashed. Amnesty International has designated Chow and Lee Cheuk-yan prisoners of conscience and called for their immediate and unconditional release. Front Line Defenders continues to document Chow’s case as one involving judicial harassment, detention and imprisonment.
Related Free China Movement archive
- Chow Hang-tung — Media Profile & Archive
- Chow Hang-tung — canonical person profile
- When Hong Kong Silences Democratic Voices, Free Societies Must Carry Their Words Further