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Lawyers who criticised jailing of young activists ‘misunderstand’ case and Hong Kong judicial system, Carrie Lam says
City’s leader dismisses foreign lawyers’ concerns over case which saw three democracy activists put behind bars for illegal protest
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Hong Kong’s leader on Tuesday said a group of senior foreign lawyers who criticised the jailing of three young political activists in the city “had misunderstood the case” and the judicial system.
The comments from Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor came a day after Hong Kong’s justice department issued its own rebuke of the 12 lawyers, who on Monday released a joint letter expressing concern over the imprisonment.
Former student leaders Joshua Wong Chi-fung, Nathan Law Kwun-chung and Alex Chow Yong-kang were jailed in August for six to eights months for storming the Hong Kong government’s headquarters in an illegal protest that triggered the 79-day Occupy pro-democracy sit-ins of 2014.
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The lawyers called the jail terms “a serious threat” to the rule of law and the “one country, two systems” principle under which Hong Kong is governed.
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Wong and Law were originally given community service orders, and Chow a suspended jail sentence, for unlawful assembly. But they were eventually jailed after the Department of Justice took the trio back to an appeal court, demanding stronger punishments.
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