Chow Hang-tung *

In a message written from prison, the lawyer on trial alongside Lee Cheuk-yan and Albert Ho for the 4 June vigils in Victoria Park speaks of the importance of resilience in remembering the 1989 massacre in Beijing, whilst the Hong Kong authorities cover the void left by the crackdown with a sea of market stalls. “4 June is a matter of principle, our most reliable safeguard against the perpetuation of dictatorship and the cult of power.”

Lawyer and pro-democracy activist Chow Hang-tung writes a “J’accuse” from her cell in a Hong Kong prison. “It is indisputable that the current international order is heavily dominated by the West, and thus still quite far from the ideal of law-as-values. But the way to improve it is not by giving more voice to the non-western dictators, which could only deepen the silence of the hitherto voiceless.”