Hong Kong sentenced three former leaders of a group behind the Special Administrative Region's annual Tiananmen Square vigils to prison terms of up to seven years and three months Friday under the national security law.
Former Hong Kong Alliance chairman Lee Cheuk-yan was sentenced to seven years in prison, while former vice-chairwoman Chow Hang-tung received seven years and three months, the South China Morning Post reported.
Former vice-chairman Albert Ho Chun-yan, who had pleaded guilty before the trial, was sentenced to five years and two months.
Three High Court judges also fined the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China HK$1.5 million (around $192,000), concluding the high-profile national security case at West Kowloon Court.
Lee, Chow and the alliance were earlier convicted of inciting subversion over their longstanding call to end "one-party dictatorship" in mainland China.
The judges found that the group had incited public hatred toward the Communist Party by drawing parallels between Beijing's 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square and Hong Kong authorities' response to the 2019 anti-government protests.
The alliance had organized annual candlelight vigils at Hong Kong's Victoria Park to commemorate the June 4, 1989 crackdown. The gatherings, once among the largest public commemorations of the crackdown, were held for three decades before authorities banned them in 2020 and 2021.
The alliance disbanded in 2021 amid a broader crackdown under the national security law imposed by Beijing in June 2020.
The law criminalizes secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces.
