Hong Kong's High Court is set to start on Thursday the landmark national security trial of three former leaders of a now disbanded group that organised annual vigils marking Beijing's 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.

Once legal in China-ruled Hong Kong, such public commemorations were hailed as a symbol of the city's relative freedom compared to mainland China.

The events on June 4, 1989, when Chinese troops opened fire to end student-led protests, are not publicly discussed in China, which treats the date as taboo and allows no public remembrance.

Dozens of people queued overnight outside the West Kowloon Magistrates' Courts building despite a cold weather warning, with scores of police officers and vehicles deployed amid tight security.

Tang Ngok-kwan, a former senior member of the disbanded group, the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, said he queued for several days to get in the courtroom out of respect for the trio's sacrifices.

"Justice resides in the hearts of the people, and history will bear witness," he said.

Blocked in 2020 over COVID-19 curbs, the commemorations have never resumed since China imposed a tough national security law that year. Several June 4 monuments, such as the "pillar of shame", have also been removed from three local universities.

Under that law, Lee Cheuk-yan, 68, Albert Ho, 74, and Chow Hang-tung, 40, the three former leaders of the now-disbanded group, now face charges of "inciting subversion of state power" that carry punishments of up to 10 years in jail.

The trial is among the last of several such major cases, with Chow, the former vice chair of the group, held on remand for more than 1,500 days after being denied bail.

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.

TRIAL TERMINATION BID REJECTED

Last November, the High Court rejected Chow's bid to terminate the trial, and barred her from calling overseas witnesses to testify virtually in 2024.

It cited an amendment to the Criminal Procedure Ordinance that prohibits remote testimony in trials involving national security. "Both sides are subject to the same restrictions … Nothing unfair is done to the defence," the judges held.

In another judgment on Wednesday, the judges said the court would adjudicate on the basis of evidence and legal principles and "will not allow trials to become a tool for political repression … or an abuse of judicial procedures", as Chow claimed.