Three leading Hong Kong democracy campaigners are to go on trial next week over their involvement in massive rallies calling for political reform, as room for opposition in the semi-autonomous territory shrinks under an assertive China.
The Hong Kong Department of Justice has prosecuted leading activists from the 2014 protests, with some also barred from standing for office and others thrown out of the Hong Kong Legislative Council. Most of those prosecuted have been young campaigners, but now it is the turn of the older generation, whose original idea of taking to the streets to demand a fairer system was a precursor to the rallies.
Sociology professor Chan Kin-man (陳健民), 59; law professor Benny Tai (戴耀廷), 54; and Baptist minister Chu Yiu-ming (朱耀明), 74, founded the Occupy Central movement in 2013, calling for the occupation of Hong Kong’s business district if the public was not given a fair vote for the territory’s leader, who is appointed by a pro-Beijing committee.
Photo: AFP
The campaign was overtaken by a student movement that exploded in September 2014, when police fired tear gas on gathering crowds.
The Occupy trio urged people to join what became known as the “Umbrella movement,” as protesters used umbrellas to shield themselves from tear gas and pepper spray.
The three men are among nine pro-democracy defendants facing “public nuisance” charges for their participation in the protests, which ultimately failed to win political reform, despite bringing parts of the territory to a standstill for more than two months.
Chan said he has become a marathon runner to prepare for the physical and mental challenges of a possible jail sentence — the maximum term for public nuisance is seven years.
He said he is “hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst” ahead of his trial, which starts on Monday, but added that he does not feel afraid.
“I’ve seen many of my friends suppressed by the Chinese government and I already feel privileged to have been able to fight against that in Hong Kong,” he told reporters.
He has chosen to testify in court to set the record straight.
“We’d like to take the witness stand and tell our story, tell people why this happened and the idea behind it,” Chan said. “We need to restore history.”
Chan and Tai have argued that the charges against them are nonsensical and amount to a political prosecution. The trio each face three charges based on a colonial-era law: conspiracy to cause public nuisance, inciting others to cause public nuisance and inciting people to incite others to cause public nuisance.
Tai has described “inciting to incite” as a “far-fetched charge” and has accused authorities of redefining the meaning of rule of law to suit their own agenda.
“Order is the most important, national security is important, other basic rights are irrelevant. This is their way now,” he said.
However, despite the growing concerns that Hong Kong’s cherished freedoms are disappearing, Tai said he believes that there is still an independent judiciary and the court would be fair.
Analyst Suzanne Pepper, an honorary fellow at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said the political reason for the trial was to discredit the democracy movement.
The charges reflect the aim of the Hong Kong government to seek guilty verdicts through “long-unused legal excuses to pursue what is essentially Beijing’s political agenda,” she said.
The explicitly nonviolent principles of the campaign could pose a challenge for prosecutors, she added.
Although the younger generation ultimately spearheaded the “Umbrella movement,” the rallies would not have happened without the trio’s Occupy Central campaign, Pepper said.
Both Tai and Chan have said that they do not regret their involvement.
Chan said he believes Hong Kongers still want to fight for democracy, but it is becoming more difficult under China’s tightening grip.
He added that he is angry at the territory’s government for doing Beijing’s bidding.
“The speed that the government is trying to drag down Hong Kong and turn it into a mainlandized city is beyond my expectations,” Chan said. “I didn’t anticipate the government would have no shame.”
The Bolivian government on Friday struck a deal with protesting miners, but was still grappling with blockades and demonstrations by other workers across La Paz. Other groups are still blocking access roads into the city, which is also the seat of the government. Police on Thursday prevented the miners from entering the main square by using tear gas, while the demonstrators hurled stones and explosives with slingshots. Protests against the policies of Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz have convulsed the Andean nation since early this month, and roadblocks were choking routes into La Paz throughout Friday, the national road authority said. Miners demanded that Paz
The Philippines said it has asked the country’s Supreme Court to allow it to arrest former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s chief drug war enforcer to stand trial in an international tribunal. The International Criminal Court (ICC) last week unsealed an arrest warrant against Philippine Senator Ronald dela Rosa, accusing him along with Duterte and other “coperpetrators” of the “crime against humanity of murder.” Dela Rosa briefly sought refuge in the Philippine Senate last week while asking the Philippine Supreme Court to stop an ongoing attempt by government agents to arrest him. “By his own conduct, he has placed himself outside the protection of
A ship anchored off the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was seized and taken toward Iran and another — a cargo ship near Oman — sank after being attacked, authorities said on Thursday, as tensions escalated near the Strait of Hormuz. It was not immediately clear who was behind these incidents, but they happened as a senior Iranian official reiterated his country’s claim of control over the waterway and another said it had a right to seize oil tankers connected to the US. The turmoil in the strait has been a sticking point for weeks in talks between the US and Iran to
The researchers in Ireland looked at their computer screen, marveling at a medieval book tracked down in a Roman library. They flipped through its digitized pages and found their sought-after treasure: the oldest surviving English poem. “We were extremely surprised. We were speechless. We couldn’t believe our eyes when we first saw that,” said Elisabetta Magnanti, a visiting research fellow at Trinity College Dublin’s school of English. The poem was also within the main body of Latin text, she said, calling it “extraordinary.” Composed in Old English by a Northumbrian agricultural worker in the 7th century, Caedmon’s Hymn appears within some copies of
RSS