Three veteran Hong Kong democracy advocates, including media tycoon Jimmy Lai (黎智英), on Wednesday pleaded guilty to taking part in an unauthorized rally in 2019 that led to violence between police and participants.
The charges carry prison terms of up to five years.
Former Hong Kong legislator Lee Cheuk-yan (李卓人) and former Hong Kong Democratic Party chairman Yeung Sum (楊森) were released on bail.
Photo: AFP
Lai was returned to jail, as he is already being held on other charges related to his opposition to China’s crackdown on civil liberties in the territory.
Walking out of the courthouse in Wanchai District, Lee said that, despite pleading guilty, he and the others saw no fault in their actions.
“Today we plead guilty to the charges, but we have done no wrong,” Lee said.
Photo: AP
“This is an act of civil disobedience. We want to reclaim our right to demonstration and we affirm the right of people, that we have the right to come out to march,” he said.
“And we believe that history will absolve us, because we believe that any political progress, and the progress and rights of the people, have to be reclaimed by the people by exercising their rights to come out to march,” he said.
The court was shown videos of the three at the Aug. 31, 2019, event.
Separately, one of a group detained at sea as they sought to flee Hong Kong by speedboat was brought to court amid extraordinary security.
A fleet of motorcycles and police vehicles along with helmeted officers toting shotguns and machine guns accompanied Andy Li (李宇軒), who is charged with collusion with foreign forces under the National Security Law imposed by Beijing, as well as unlicensed possession of ammunition and conspiracy to assist offenders.
Li was charged with collusion in August last year.
He had been one of 12 Hong Kongers detained by mainland Chinese authorities on a boat in late August last year, sentenced to seven months in prison, and returned to Hong Kong on March 22.
Li’s story then took a twist reflective of China’s opaque legal system.
His family was unable to contact him for days after his return to Hong Kong.
Then, Lawrence Law (羅達雄), a lawyer unknown to Li’s family, appeared to represent him.
Law was also at court on Wednesday.
Law works at Olympia Chambers, which last week issued a statement saying that “Mr Law has no duty to inform the press about the details of his instructions, and/or to the family members of Mr Li.”
Law was “instructed through a private firm of solicitors to appear,” but no other information was provided.
Eight of the people in the boat had been jailed in Shenzhen and returned to Hong Kong in batches, a police statement said on Monday.
The group was detained at sea during an attempt to reach Taiwan.
Many were facing prosecution in Hong Kong because of their involvement in the 2019 protests.
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