On 25 August 2021, Lee Cheuk Yan, general secretary of the HKCTU and the chair of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China (Hong Kong Alliance) – currently in jail – was served notice by the National Security Department of the Hong Kong Police to submit information under Article 43 of the National Security Law and Schedule 5 of the Implementation Rules for Article 43 of the law. These provisions regulate submission of information for investigation of national security crimes. The current inquiry relates to the activities of the Hong Kong Alliance. The police demanded that Lee Cheuk Yan provide full information on all the alliance’s activities, finances, foreign sources of funding, relations with organisations outside Hong Kong, and personal details of all members since the group’s founding in 1989 – all this with a deadline of 7 September 2021. The penalty for not providing complete information or providing false information includes a fine of HK$100,000 and a jail term of anywhere from six months to two years. The Hong Kong Alliance, as well as its executive committee members – including Lee Cheuk Yan, Albert Ho, Chow Hang Tung and the other four members – have already been designated under schedule 5 as foreign agents by the police.
On the day of the deadline, Lee Cheuk Yan and the other executive committee members issued statements refusing to comply with the information demands of the police. They challenged the determination of the Hong Kong Alliance as a foreign agent based on “reasonable belief” only and in the absence of any substantiation of allegations of dependence on any foreign organisation.
In reaction, on 8 September 2021, Lee Cheuk Yan and the Hong Kong Alliance, as a legal person, were prosecuted for inciting subversion under Articles 22 and 23 of the National Security Law, namely “to organize, plan, commit or participate in subverting state power, that is overthrowing or undermining the basic system of the People’s Republic of China established by the PRC constitution, or overthrowing the body of central power of the PRC”, for having organised the candlelight vigil on 4 June, mourning those killed in the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown.
On 9 September, the police proceeded to freeze the alliance’s assets and bank account and shut down the 4 June Memorial Museum. The organisation’s website has been removed at the request of the police under section 7(2) of schedule 4 of the Implementation Rules.
The HKCTU has been a member organisation of the Hong Kong Alliance since its creation in 1989. Trade unions collaborated in the alliance’s activities, including the annual candlelight vigil on 4 June. Not only do these new national security charges further impede Lee Cheuk Yan’s performing his trade union activities, but they also add to the climate of fear, persecution and elimination of democratic space in Hong Kong, seriously obstructing workers in the exercise of their freedom-of-association rights.
