A group of high-professional activists from Hong Kong, including media magnate Jimmy Lai, are sentenced on Friday for organizing or attending “unauthorized gatherings” during mass protests that rocked the city in 2019.
Some imprisonment of up to five years is expected, which will be another blow to Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, as authorities work to destroy all forms of dissent.
Along with Lai include veteran activists Lee Cheuk Yan and ‘Long Hair’ Leung Kwok-hung, 82-year-old lawyer Martin Lee, widely known as the father of Hong Kong democracy, and 73-year-old lawyer and former lawmaker Margaret Ng .
The sentences relate to convictions in two cases – one related to a protest on 18 August 2019 and another two weeks later on 31 August.
Lai and Lee Cheuk Yan were accused in both cases. Lai, who is facing other charges, including the National Security Act introduced by Beijing last year, has been detained since late last year, but Friday is the first time he has been sentenced.
His repeated arrests and the attack on his newsrooms provoked international condemnation. Lee is also facing a number of other protest-related cases this year and told the Guardian earlier he would expect jail time.
Dozens lined up on Friday morning to enter West Kowloon court, including foreign diplomats and former lawmakers in Hong Kong. Former Democratic member Emily Lau told the Hong Kong Free Press she was worried about her former colleagues.
“We hope they will get a fair and just treatment from the Hong Kong judiciary,” she said. “Some of us still have some confidence in the judiciary, but we will wait and see.”
Outside court, the accused raised their hands to indicate ‘five demands, not one less’, an outcry from the movement. Lee Cheuk Yan urged people in Hong Kong to ‘hold on’.
“I am ready to face the punishment and sentencing, and I am proud to be able to walk with the people of Hong Kong for this democracy,” Lee said. “We will even walk together in darkness.”
The offenses sentenced to a maximum of five years in prison. Critics have argued that the imposition of jail time for the unauthorized protests would be disproportionate.
In mitigation, Margaret Ng said the court should “give laws protection to rights, not take them away, especially not in Hong Kong where structural democracy is absent”.
‘We are mindful that when the court applies a law that takes away fundamental rights, trust in the courts and judicial independence is shaken, even if the fault lies in the law, not in the judge applying it, and would strike on the basis of our rule of law. ”
Ng said that ‘no right is as precious to the people of Hong Kong as the freedom of expression and the freedom of a peaceful assembly’.
Prosecutors accused the individuals of arranging or participating in unauthorized meetings on two dates in August 2019, at the height of the massive pro-democracy protests that brought the city to a standstill.
District Judge Amanda Woodcock found seven defendants guilty on April 2 and accepted two pleas over the August 18 protest.
An estimated 1.7 million people acted during the August 18 protest, which was relatively peaceful but against police order. Its organizers, the Civil Human Rights Front, were given permission to hold a rally in Victoria Park, but not a march, which began when crowds flooded the streets and took highways to government offices a few kilometers to step further.
Woodcock found against the defense that the march was a “distribution plan born of necessity” and was instead an unauthorized public march.
The August 31 rally – to which Lee Cheuk Yan, Lai and former Democratic Party chairman Yeung Sum pleaded guilty on April 7 – was originally stopped by organizers after police arrested pro-democracy lawmakers and activists, but the crowd it regardless of argument.
Lee told the court the group did nothing wrong and history would acquit us.
The protest began earlier in the day as a peaceful march and escalated into violence and chaos, with protesters and police clashing in various places in the city. The Guardian reported at the time that police used water cannons, tear gas, pepper spray and ‘warning shots’ of live rounds in response to protesters around the government and police headquarters. Elsewhere, riot police stormed the Prince Edward tube station, using batons to hit passengers.
More than 10,200 people have been arrested in connection with the 2019 mass protests, which began with protests against a proposed bill that allowed extradition to China but developed into a broader pro-democracy movement that used violent confrontations with increasingly brutal police response teams. Less than 3,000 of the arrests have progressed to the court system.
Subsequent repression by authorities, using existing criminal laws, a draconian national security law enacted by Beijing in 2020, and anti-pandemic laws, ended mass protests, and more than 100 people were arrested on suspicion of national security violations, including many of the opposition camp. This week, the government banned amendments to overhaul the electoral system by investigating the police for candidates, calling for a boycott of the vote, and limiting the number of seats candidates can hold in the opposition.