In a high-profile rioting case involving the storming of the city legislature during an anti-government protest in 2019, a Hong Kong court on Saturday ( Mar 16 ) sentenced 12 people to prison terms of up to almost seven years.
The event marked a turning point in the months-long protests that ensnared Beijing’s China-ruled area in the most bold nationalist uprising since Beijing’s 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
As protesters erupted inside the Hong Kong legislative council building on July 1, 2019, slamming windows and entangling a bill that would have allowed judges to give people to mainland China for trial.
Gregory Wong, 45, an artist, was one of the defendants sentenced by district judge Judge Li Chi-ho, who had entered a not-guilty plea.
The political protesters Ventus Lau and Owen Chow, who had pleaded guilty, were likewise given prison terms.