My Take | A crime is a crime, whoever commits it
Leaders of the 2014 Occupy movement are crying foul after being charged with inciting the protests, with claims demonstrators have ‘free will’
So much for their professed respect for the rule of law. More than 200 local and overseas academics have expressed “outrage and alarm” at the prosecution of nine Occupy leaders for their alleged roles at inciting others in the pro-democracy protests in 2014.
Shouldn’t our independent courts decide whether or not those charged are guilty? Why do “scholars”, local or otherwise, think they have any special insight or authority to judge the decisions of local prosecutors and courts? I have found taxi drivers, whose livelihoods were undermined by the protests, have had far more common sense, real-life experience and trustworthy judgment about the unrest.
There seems to be at least some evidence that the nine charged had helped organise and incite people to protest. It was all captured on TV. Maybe they did it for what they considered a noble cause. But encouraging people to block three major arteries of a big city in a protest that lasted for months would, I think, have broken a few laws under any jurisdiction.
“We are alarmed and outraged,” the joint statement by the academics said.
“These criminal prosecutions against peaceful academics and citizens have immense chilling effects on the international and local academia, students and the youth, in addition to inflicting permanent damage to Hong Kong’s reputation as a free and open society.”