Taiwan scholar barred from testifying in Tiananmen vigil trial over ‘irrelevant’ expertise, Hong Kong court says

A Taiwanese academic was barred from testifying in Tiananmen vigil activist Chow Hang-tung’s national security trial as the evidence he planned to give was “irrelevant” to the case at hand, a Hong Kong court has said.

Chow Hang-tung. Photo: Candice Chau/HKFP.

Chow had initially applied to have Ho Ming-sho, a sociology professor at National Taiwan University, testify in her national security trial.

The three designated judges presiding over the trial rejected the application during the early days of the trial in January, but per usual practice, the judgment explaining why was only published some time after.

The trial was adjourned in February until Monday after the prosecution finished its opening arguments.

In the judgment released on Wednesday, the judges said that a report submitted by Ho failed to address key issues in the case, including the political demands of the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China.

The alliance, which Chow once led, organised decades of candlelight vigils to mark Beijing’s 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown until the annual assemblies were halted and the group was later disbanded.

The Tiananmen vigil at Victoria Park in 2019. Photo: Todd R. Darling/HKFP.

The vigil group is named as a defendant in the case, alongside former leaders of the group: Chow; unionist Lee Cheuk-yan; and solicitor Albert Ho, the only defendant who pleaded guilty. The three activists are accused of inciting subversion under the Beijing-imposed national security law.

The prosecution alleges that the activists continued to push for the group’s political demands, including calls for an end to one-party rule, after the national security law was implemented.

‘Independence and objectivity’

High Court judges Alex Lee, Johnny Chan, and Anna Lai said in the judgment that Ho Ming-sho was not an expert in what mattered to the case.

Ho Ming-sho, a sociology professor at National Taiwan University. Photo: National Taiwan University.

“This court respects Professor Ho’s academic standing as a political scientist, but he is not an expert in Chinese constitutional or legal matters. Indeed, his ‘expert report’ contains no discussion whatsoever of the national constitutional or legal system,” the judgment, written in Chinese, read.

His report included details about democracy movements in South Korea, South Africa, Spain, and the Soviet Union, the judges said.

Ho’s expertise could not answer questions posed by the court as to whether any overseas democracy movement has called for an end to one-party rule, and whether democratisation must be conducted through illegal means, the judges said.

“Professor Ho’s proposed evidence is irrelevant to the issues in dispute in this case,” the judges ruled.

“Accordingly, this court refuses to allow Professor Ho to appear as an expert witness,” the judges said.

West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts in Hong Kong, on September 19, 2024. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP.

The prosecution had earlier argued that the scholar could not be impartial as a witness, based on his criticism of the Chinese Communist Party on public platforms.

However, the judges rejected the argument, saying his past remarks were “insufficient to demonstrate a lack of independence and objectivity on his part, such that his evidence might be deemed unreliable.”