‘I’m not a foreign agent, I do not plead guilty’

Five members of the group which for three decades organised June 4 vigils in Hong Kong pleaded not guilty on Friday to failing to comply with a demand to furnish police with information about their activities.

Chow Hang-tung, Leung Kam-wai, Chan To-wai, Tang Ngok-kwan and Tsui Hon-kwong – members of the standing committee of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China – are accused of breaching the Implementation Rules for Article 43 of the national security law.

These rules empower the police commissioner to require a “foreign or Taiwan agent” to provide various information such as their assets, income, sources of income, expenditure and activities.

“I’m not a foreign agent. I do not plead guilty,” Tang told West Kowloon Court.

All five were denied bail.

A pre-trial hearing is expected to be held on October 21.

Earlier in the day, Chow and the alliance’s Lee Cheuk-yan and Albert Ho were brought before the same court on a subversion charge. No pleas were taken and their case was adjourned until October 28.

Chow was denied bail in that case too, while Lee and Ho are serving prison terms over protests in 2019.