Hong Kong tertiary students handed custodial sentences while 12-year-old walks over incident that saw rail line blocked during protest last November

The incident took place last November, and marked the beginning of broader transport stoppages that largely cut off the New Territories East for days

The magistrate in the case slammed the older students for being a bad influence on the ‘tiny’ boy

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The Fanling Law Courts Building, where two students were sentenced over their roles in a November protest action that blocked East Rail line tracks. Photo: Winson Wong

Published: 6:48pm, 24 Aug 2020Updated: 7:13pm, 24 Aug 2020

A 12-year-old boy was spared jail on Monday after he attempted to bring a railway line to a standstill during an anti-government protest last year, but two tertiary students whom a magistrate slammed for being a bad influence were handed custodial sentences.

Sentencing the two older students, Fanling Principal Magistrate Don So Man-lung blasted the pair, Lo Pui-yiu, 21, and Ng Wai-ho, 18, for their lack of “humanity and morality” over their actions on November 11.

Answering online calls for citywide strikes and class boycotts that day, the three joined a larger group at University MTR station in throwing bamboo sticks onto the East Rail line – a prelude to a wider traffic paralysis that would cut off the most immediate access to Kowloon and Hong Kong Island for New Territories East residents for days.

“Not only did you two fail to discourage him [the 12-year-old boy] from doing so, or make him go home, you two undertook to join him in committing the crime as an enterprise,” So said on Monday in sentencing Lo and Ng.

He sentenced Lo, a psychology student at Chinese University, to eight months in jail, while Ng, an associate degree student in Chinese studies who had already spent seven months in detention awaiting sentencing, was sent to a rehabilitation centre that houses young offenders.