A Hong Kong teenager who was arrested and sent to a children’s home after she drew a flower on a wall famous for pro-democracy messages has been released on bail, authorities said yesterday.
The announcement came after the 14-year-old girl’s lawyers accused authorities of “disproportionate” measures against teenage protesters seeking fully free leadership elections for the territory.
The girl was arrested last week after allegedly chalking a flower on the so-called “Lennon Wall,” and was sent to a children’s home on Monday for three weeks as a court considers whether to remove her from her father’s care.
The application before the court alleged that she is being neglected by her family, but the girl’s lawyers strongly rejected the charge, citing a lack of evidence.
“She previously had to be in a children’s home, but there is now no need [for her] to stay there,” a police spokeswoman told reporters yesterday, without elaborating.
The police spokeswoman said that the girl has been released on bail before her case is to be heard again on Jan. 19.
The girl’s lawyer, Patricia Ho (何珮芝), said earlier that the decision to place minors in children’s homes was rare and was an attempt by authorities to “impose a climate of fear.”
The “Lennon Wall” is a staircase by a major thoroughfare in the Admiralty District that was blocked by democracy protesters during more than two months of rallies and plastered with brightly colored notes of support for the movement.
Police cleared the protest site early last month.
In a separate case, a 14-year-old boy could also be removed from his parents’ care after being arrested when police cleared a protest camp in Mong Kok in late November.
Neither of the teenagers have been formally charged.
Police have told reporters that they do not have a total figure for the number of minors detained during the pro-democracy protests.
However, some people as young as 13 were arrested at small Christmas protests in Mong Kok, according to police statements.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion