Hong Kong protests: judge jails 4 men for up to 6 months over stand-off at police station in 2019
- A fifth co-defendant was spared jail time because of his youth, and was sentenced to correctional training instead
- The illegal protest in question followed an approved procession from Kwai Chung to Tsuen Wan on August 25 that descended into chaos
A judge urged society to give young offenders a chance to turn over a new leaf as he jailed four men on Monday for up to six months for taking part in an unlawful assembly outside a Hong Kong police station during the social unrest of 2019.
The four men – along with a fifth co-defendant sentenced to correctional training – were among the 10 people charged in relation to a stand-off between protesters and officers outside Sham Shui Po Police Station on August 25, 2019, two months after Hongkongers first took to the streets in large numbers to oppose an ultimately withdrawn extradition bill.
Half of the suspects were acquitted last month on the grounds that they could have been innocent passers-by.
The District Court’s ruling on Monday served as an exception to a month-long adjournment of all proceedings announced by the judiciary last Friday in light of the city’s surging fifth wave of Covid-19 infections.
Judge Clement Lee Hing-nin noted that some defendants currently awaiting sentence in custody would have spent more time behind bars than they were obliged to if he handed down his ruling at a later date.
He also cited a mitigation letter in urging society to “offer the lost generation greater leniency and a chance to start over”.
“There is hope but not despair. To err is human. People who make wrong judgments can be found here and there, but a burnt child dreads the fire,” the judge said.
