Three former members of a Hong Kong group responsible for organising annual vigils to mark China's 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, are found guilty of not complying with a national security police request for information.
During the trial that only kicked off late last year, more than a year after the defendants were arrested, the Alliance was accused by government prosecutor Ivan Cheung of being a "foreign agent" for an unnamed group, after allegedly receiving $HK20,000 from it.
Magistrate Peter Law, who was hand-picked to hear national security cases by Hong Kong's Beijing-backed leader, said in a written judgement that it was necessary for the police to "ascertain the background" of the group given its political activities and "nexus of interactions with local and non-local organisations and people".Sentencing is expected on March 11 with a maximum jail term of six months for this particular offence.
The national security law, which punishes acts including subversion and collusion with foreign forces, has been criticised by some Western governments as a tool to crush dissent. The respected San Francisco-based rights monitoring group Dui Hua reported on Thursday that Yao Wentian, 83, was released on February 26 and returned to his family in Hong Kong the next day.
Mr Yao had been sentenced to 10 years and fined for "smuggling common goods" after he brought construction materials into China to help a friend who was refurbishing his apartment, Dui Hua said.
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