A Hong Kong court sentenced 12 people to prison terms ranging from more than four to nearly seven years on Saturday ( 16 ), in a well-known rioting case involving the storming of the city legislature during an anti-government demonstration in 2019.
As protesters erupted in Hong Kong’s parliamentary committee building on July 1, 2019, breaking windows and entangling the building as the government’s outcry against a proposed extradition expenses that would have allowed judges to transfer citizens to mainland China for trial.
Gregory Wong, 45, who was sentenced by district judge determine Li Chi-ho, was one of the sentenced individuals who received a six-year and two-month jail sentence.
Democratic activists Ventus Lau and Owen Chow, who had pleaded innocent, received words of 54 weeks and 20 weeks, and 61 times and 15 times, both.
Li described the incident as a” serious” blow to the city’s rule of law.
” The large number of protesters, the power, the unique legal status of the Legislative Council, and the intent to diminish the value of the ( Hong Kong ) state, are insulting”, he said.
The judge went into great detail about how protesters had rammed their way into the building with steel walls, pelted the place with eggs, sprayed political phrases on the windows, and painted over a federal emblem.
The former president of the University of Hong Kong’s student coalition, Althea Suen, 27, who had pleaded guilty, was sentenced to four years and nine times.
Parents and supporters cried and yelled” Get treatment”! and” Drop on there”! as the accused were escorted out of the crystal port.
Chow claimed that the government’s refusal to remove the extradition expenses after a million people marched against it was the primary reason for the event.
Before the words were handed down, Chow told the court,” I’ll continue to move forward and turn my anxiety into a power for modify, just like the day I entered the room.”
He claimed that their steps were motivated by a desire to defend fundamental human rights that were in danger of losing.
” Martin Luther King, president of the human rights movements who has always advocated calm and rational demonstrations, once said,’ A mob is the speech of the unknown ‘”, Chow told the jury.
Lau claimed that he had rushed to the scene because he was concerned about a gruesome police crackdown. Lau retreated to Hong Kong after quitting the country, despite the possibility of legal action.
He said,” I do n’t want the public to believe that everyone in this movement cares about their own safety.”
actor Wong claimed that his arrest and conviction had essentially derailed his acting career since he was 12 years old in a mitigation letter that was sent to the court last month.
” I will still help people in need with a sincere heart”, Wong wrote.
Student reporter Wong Ka- ho and online media reporter Ma Kai- chung, who were acquitted of rioting but found guilty of “entering or staying in the precincts of the chamber”, received fines of HK$ 1, 500 ( US$ 190 ) and HK$ 1, 000 respectively.
In Hong Kong’s district court, rioting can be punished for a maximum sentence of seven years.
More than 10, 200 people were arrested in relation to the protests in 2019, of whom 2, 937 have so far been charged with offences including rioting, unlawful assembly and criminal damage, according to police figures.
Of these, over 870 people have been charged with rioting, according to the Witness, an online news portal specialising in legal news.