Hong Kong protests: construction worker found guilty of rioting during siege of police headquarters
- Guilty verdict following trial for rioting is the first involving anti-government unrest that broke out last June
- Shum Hiu-lun, 26, also convicted of common assault and failing surrender after attack on policeman
The District Court on Thursday ruled that an unlawful assembly outside the Wan Chai building on June 26, 2019, escalated into a riot when public peace was breached by protesters attacking officer Cheung Kam-fuk, who was on his way to work in plain clothes, without any identification.
Among them was Shum Hiu-lun, 26, who admitted punching the man twice and kicking him once, calling them defensive moves in response to Cheung pushing a female protester to the ground and to prevent him from launching further attacks, not knowing the man was an officer.
But District Judge Anthony Kwok Kai-on found Shum to be an untrustworthy witness who used the woman’s fall to his own advantage to try and beat the charges, concluding that he had shared a common purpose with the other protesters on site and inflicted unlawful and unreasonable force that exceeded the need for self-defence.
“The law will never allow protesters to act with no regard to law and order, regardless of whether they think they are only acting for the purpose of standing up for justice or condemning ‘police brutality’,” Kwok said.
The judge, however, sided with the defence in rejecting the officer’s claim that Shum broke his canker sore during those punches, leaving him in pain for a week, which was not recorded in the six-page account of the incident on his notebook or supported by medical proof since he did not consult doctors afterwards.