A judge in Hong Kong on Thursday convicted seven pro-democracy protest leaders, including media tycoon Jimmy Lai, on charges of organizing and participating in an unlawful assembly during mass protests that rocked the former British colony in 2019.
Judge Amanda Woodcock in the district court of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region convicted Lai, 73, founder of the Apple Daily newspaper; Martin Lee, 82, known as Hong Kong's "father of democracy"; Albert Ho, 69, former politician; and barrister Margaret Ng, 73, as well as three other politicians and activist leaders for their involvement in a protest on Aug. 18, 2019.
An estimated 1.7 million people took to the streets of Hong Kong on the day in question to protest the government, police brutality and a controversial extradition bill that would allow for some fugitives in the city to be sent to the mainland where they'd be tried by Chinese Communist Party courts.
Organized by the Civil Human Rights Front, a protest at Victoria Park was approved by police, but the charges against the democracy leaders stem from a procession that left the park carrying a banner toward Chater Road in Central, Hong Kong.
“It is our badge of honor to be in jail for walking together with the people of Hong Kong.”
— Bloomberg Quicktake (@Quicktake) April 1, 2021
Pro-democracy politician Lee Cheuk-yan speaks after he and others are found guilty of attending an unauthorized protest in 2019. More: https://t.co/9501svyWzO #HongKongProtests #香港 pic.twitter.com/hBPx0POtHO
The prosecution accused the defendants of turning the peaceful and police-approved protest into an illegal march.
The defense argued that the leaders participated in order to safely disperse the some 300,000 people from the area -- an argument the prosecution described as a "disingenuous excuse to flout the law," according to the court document.
Woodcock, in her ruling, rejected the defense, saying if the defendants were assisting with the dispersal then "it does beggar belief they needed such a large banner."
"I am sure this public procession was not about dispersal of crowds," Woodcock wrote. "That was a description used to defy the law and circumvent the ban. ... It was only a dispersal plan in name and the truth is it was a planned unauthorized assembly."
The prosecution had said more than 30 people participated in the procession where the words "Stop the police and gangsters from plunging Hong kong into chaos" were printed on the banner.
Woodcock also rejected the defense's argument that the defendants were not organizers of the event because they were not specifically named on the application for the assembly.
Former politicians "Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung, 65; Cyd Ho, 66; and Lee Cheuk-yan, 64, made up the rest of the seven convicted on Thursday.
Two other charged former politicians -- Au Nok-hin, 33, and Leung Yiu-chung, 67 -- pleaded guilty before the trial.
Another dark day for #HongKong, as court system weaponized to convict venerable longtime legislators Martin Lee, Margaret Ng, Albert Ho, Lee Cheuk-yan+publisher Jimmy Lai.
— Minky Worden (@MinkysHighjinks) April 1, 2021
World should question Beijing’s determination to warp justice for this result: https://t.co/2HZ0reh6Zh pic.twitter.com/sCd5Mwsqoq
Samuel Chu of the U.S. based-Hong Kong Democracy Council said the trial was not simply about one day in August of 2019 but an attempt to discredit the work, contributions and legacy of elder statesmen and women of Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement.
"It is a deeper and more insidious form of political persecution -- to not only silence them and to take away their freedom, but also to erase their political influence and legacy to recast them as criminals as the CCP rewrites the history of Hong Kong," Chu said in a tweet. "This conviction was as much about the first million Hong Kongers [protest] march in May of 1989 as it was about the 1.7 million protest march in 2019."
This article has been adapted from its original source.
