Beijing continues to tighten the noose around free political expression in Hong Kong. For years, this had been the only place in China where public rallies could be held to commemorate Beijing’s 1989 military slaughter of Tiananmen Square protesters and to call for political rights. In a high profile case, a Hong Kong court Sept. 11 sentenced three leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance, the organizer of mass Tiananmen vigils, to several years in prison.

For three decades, the annual commemorations were a symbol of relative political freedoms in the autonomous territory as compared to the mainland. But after massive anti-government protests there in 2019, China’s bureaucratic rulers imposed a draconian national security law and began to steadily eliminate basic freedoms.

Chow Hang-tung, 41; Lee Cheuk-yan, 69; and Albert Ho, 74, were sentenced to between five and seven years imprisonment, having already spent several years behind bars awaiting trial. Lee is a labor organizer while Chow and Ho are both lawyers. Ho was also a founder of Hong Kong’s largest opposition party before it was forced to disband last year.

All three are being punished for calling for the “end of one-party dictatorship” in China. Beijing fears any opening for opposition by working people to its oppressive rule.

Chow defended herself uncompromisingly, seeking to keep alive the memory of Tiananmen victims. She cited the testimony of mothers whose children were among the many killed in the 1989 slaughter.

Behind bars, she has marked every anniversary by a hunger strike. She pledged in court to demand accountability by Beijing for its Tiananmen victims “until the day democracy arrives.”

Another protest leader on trial, Joshua Wong, 29, has been in prison since late 2020, serving a sentence of more than four years for “conspiracy to commit subversion.” His “crime” was helping to organize an electoral opposition to the city authorities. He pleaded guilty Sept. 1 to a new charge, brought last year, of collusion with foreign entities. Under the draconian national security law, it can carry a sentence of life in prison.

In February, Jimmy Lai, 78, founder of a popular daily newspaper that defended press freedom, was sentenced to 20 years in jail on national security charges. He has been imprisoned, often in solitary confinement, since late 2020.

In recent months, National Security police have raided and closed four independent bookshops, Daniel Chan told the Militant from Hong Kong. Authorities are cracking down on what they claim are “seditious” books.

Mandy Lau was one of five people arrested at the Have A Nice Stay bookstore July 19. In a gesture of public defiance that went viral, she was pictured, hands cuffed behind her back but head held high, wearing a T-shirt emblazoned in Chinese characters: “I am a bookstore employee.”

The authorities seized hundreds of books, many of them imported from Taiwan. “People from all walks of life, including many young people who did not visit bookshops regularly, went to buy books to show their support,” Chan reported.

Taiwan has become the last place in the Chinese-speaking world where readers can freely access books not censored by Beijing.