A Hong Kong court found two pro-democracy activists who organised annual vigils to mark China's deadly Tiananmen crackdown guilty of "incitement to subversion" on Friday. The closely watched national security case was seen as a bellwether for freedom of expression in the Chinese city. Lee Cheuk-yan and Chow Hang-tung were leaders of the now-defunct Hong Kong Alliance, a group that organised annual candlelit vigils to commemorate the victims of Beijing's 1989 Tiananmen crackdown. Read more'The world has let this happen': Wu'er Kaixi on Hong Kong's loss of freedoms A third defendant, Albert Ho, pleaded guilty in January. Here is what you need to know about the three activists: Chow Hang-tung Chow, 41, is a Cambridge-educated lawyer who represented herself at the trial, speaking at a brisk pace and responding to questions quickly. Part of a generation that came of age after Hong Kong's 1997 return to Chinese rule, she attended the vigils from childhood and joined the Alliance in 2010 as a volunteer. She became a spokesperson for the Alliance after Beijing imposed a national security law on the city in 2020, following huge and sometimes violent protests the year before. Jailed since 2021, Chow has undertaken a hunger strike every June to commemorate the 1989 anniversary. She quoted Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Chinese Tiananmen activist Liu Xiaobo during the trial, saying the Alliance had no enemies but rather opposed one-party rule. She told the court that seeking justice for Tiananmen victims is a moral duty, which "should not be classified as incitement to commit a crime". "No matter how omnipotent the (Chinese) Communist Party's leadership may be, it cannot dictate our conscience," Chow said in her closing submissions. "We know exactly what we want: to end one-party dictatorship, bring about a democratic transition, and effect a change of regime." Lee Cheuk-yan