Why were 13 Hong Kong protesters jailed, and what does this mean for future demonstrations?
Ruling reflects city’s judges approach towards cases involving rallies that ‘turn rowdy’
Thirteen Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters convicted of unlawful assembly were jailed for between eight and 13 months by an appeal court on Tuesday after prosecutors pushed for tougher sentences. The demonstrators had originally been spared imprisonment by a lower court judge, who ruled that they had fought for a “noble cause” when they took part in a protest against a controversial government development plan in 2014. How did a community service order turn into more than a year of jail time for most of these young activists?
How did the 13 end up having a brush with the law?
The 13 were among a bigger group of about 200 who stormed the city’s parliament, the Legislative Council, in Admiralty on June 13, 2014, during what was the sixth in a series of protests against the Hong Kong government’s new town development plan in the northeastern New Territories. The legislature’s financial committee was debating the preliminary funding, totalling HK$340 million, for the project.
Protesters and villagers – some of whom would lose their homes if the plan went ahead – sat peacefully outside the building. But the mood changed later that night when the then-chairman of the financial committee, Ng Leung-sing, abruptly ended pan-democratic lawmakers’ effort to filibuster and allowed the funding to be voted on and passed.
Protesters who stormed Hong Kong’s Legislative Council given jail terms after prosecutors pushed for tougher sentences
Angry protesters then tried to storm into the legislature in an attempt, they said, to start a dialogue with the lawmakers. They used bamboo sticks and metal objects to pry open the front gate, while police officers fended them off with pepper spray and shields. A security guard was injured and a side door damaged, to the tune of HK$200,000.
The 13 activists were subsequently arrested and faced a range of charges including unlawful assembly, forcible entry and obstruction of Legco officers. But villager Au Hei-man said in a press conference after the 13 were jailed on Tuesday: “They were only using their bodies to stop the violence of the bureaucracy.”
