SUBVERTING STATE POWER A KEY QUESTION IN TRIAL
In an opening statement, prosecutors said the case centred on whether the Alliance’s publicly stated goal of “ending one-party rule” constituted illegally inciting others to carry out acts aimed at subverting state power.
The other key focus of the case was whether such acts amounted to “overthrowing or undermining” China’s system of government, they added.
Rights groups and some foreign governments have criticised such national security cases against prominent democrats as a weaponisation of the rule of law to silence dissent.
“This case is not about national security – it is about rewriting history and punishing those who refuse to forget the victims of the Tiananmen crackdown,” said Sarah Brooks, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director, Asia.
Beijing, however, says the security law was necessary to restore order after sometimes violent protests rocked the Asian financial hub for months in 2019.
Detained since September 2021, Chow, a Cambridge-educated barrister, is one of the few democratic campaigners still speaking out against the Chinese Communist Party’s crackdown.
She has represented herself in court and challenged prison rules.
“The state can lock up people but not their thinking, just as it can lock up facts but not alter truth,” she told Reuters in an interview.
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