Former Hong Kong girls’ schoolteacher turned activist jailed for 9 months for unlawful assembly during June 2019 social unrest
- Court hears teacher turned publisher lost most of his vision in right eye after he was hit by a tear-gas canister at 2019 demonstration
- Magistrate insists injury could not be used in mitigation because of scale of social unrest
A former teacher turned political activist who lost most of the vision in one eye after he was struck by a police tear gas canister at a 2019 anti-extradition bill protest in Hong Kong has been jailed for nine months for involvement in the social unrest.
Raymond Yeung Tsz-chun, now a publisher, pleaded guilty at Eastern Court on Monday to two charges of unlawful assembly.
The court heard that Yeung took part in a demonstration in the morning and also in the afternoon near the government’s Tamar headquarters on June 12, 2019, in a bid to block the second reading of a bill that would have allowed the extradition of fugitives to mainland China.
The 32-year-old was one of eight people who applied in 2019 for a judicial review of a police decision to exempt officers from wearing their force identification numbers while on duty during the disturbances.
A High Court judge ruled in November 2020 that the police decision was unconstitutional.