NAGKAISA! strongly condemns the Hong Kong court’s conviction of veteran trade unionist and democracy advocate Lee Cheuk-yan and activist Chow Hang-tung for “inciting others to subvert state power.”
This is not justice. It is the criminalization of peaceful dissent, democratic advocacy and the right to speak truth to power.
Lee is a longtime trade unionist and former general secretary of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU). His conviction strikes at a principle fundamental to the labor movement: Unions cannot defend workers if democracy itself is criminalized.
The prosecution did not establish that Lee or Chow planned violence or sought to overthrow the government through unlawful means. Their alleged crime was their advocacy for democracy, including the Alliance’s call to end one-party rule and its peaceful commemoration of the Tiananmen victims.
Since when is calling for democracy “subversion”? Since when is remembering the dead a crime?
NAGKAISA! rejects the use of national-security laws to silence trade unionists, activists and civil society.
An attack on one unionist is an attack on all unionists.
We stand in solidarity with Lee Cheuk-yan, Chow Hang-tung and the people of Hong Kong who continue to defend freedom, democracy and the right to organize.
They may imprison Lee. They may silence a voice. But they cannot imprison the workers’ struggle or erase the truth.
DEFEND DEMOCRACY!
FREE LEE CHEUK-YAN!
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