Seven of Hong Kong’s most outstanding democracy advocates have had a part of their convictions overturned over their roles in one of many greatest pro-democracy protests in 2019
ByKANIS LEUNG Related Press
August 13, 2023, 10:46 PM
FILE – Jimmy Lai walks by way of the Stanley jail in Hong Kong, on July 28, 2023. Seven of Hong Kong’s most outstanding pro-democracy advocates, together with Lai and the town’s authorized icons, partially received their bid to quash their convictions on Monday, Aug. 14, 2023, over their roles in one of many greatest pro-democracy protests in 2019.(AP Picture/Louise Delmotte, File)
The Related Press
HONG KONG — Seven of Hong Kong’s most outstanding pro-democracy advocates had a part of their convictions quashed Monday over their roles in one of many greatest pro-democracy protests in 2019.
Jimmy Lai, founding father of the now-defunct Apple Day by day newspaper; Martin Lee, the founding chairman of the town’s Democratic Occasion; and 5 former pro-democracy lawmakers, together with barrister Margaret Ng, had been discovered responsible of organizing and taking part an unauthorized meeting.
Lai, Lee Cheuk-yan, Leung Kwok-hung and Cyd Ho had been jailed between eight to 18 months. Martin Lee, an octogenarian nicknamed the town’s “Father of Democracy,” Ng and Albert Ho got suspended jail sentences.
Their convictions two years in the past and their sentences had been broadly seen as one other blow to the town’s flagging democracy motion below an unprecedented crackdown by Beijing and Hong Kong authorities.
Decide Andrew Macrae stated he and different judges of the Court docket of Enchantment unanimously quashed their convictions over the cost of organizing an unauthorized meeting. However their convictions over collaborating in an unauthorized meeting had been upheld.
All appellants have served out their sentences for this case. However Lai, Leung, Ho and Lee Cheuk-yan remained in custody as they had been additionally charged below a nationwide safety regulation imposed by Beijing in 2020 following the huge protests.
The costs concerned a rally in August 2019 that drew an estimated 1.7 million folks onto Hong Kong’s streets to name for larger police accountability and democracy. The march was comparatively peaceable, in comparison with different protests that usually morphed into violent clashes between police and protesters that 12 months.
The 2019 motion was the town’s most concerted problem to the Hong Kong authorities because the former British colony returned to China’s rule in 1997.
The professional-democracy motion waned with the arrests and exiles of democracy activists, the COVID-19 pandemic and the nationwide safety regulation.
