HONG KONG — Seven of Hong Kong’s most prominent pro-democracy advocates had part of their convictions quashed Monday over their roles in one of the biggest pro-democracy protests in 2019.
Jimmy Lai, founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper; Martin Lee, the founding chairman of the city’s Democratic Party; and five former pro-democracy lawmakers, including barrister Margaret Ng, had been found guilty of organizing and participating an unauthorized assembly.
Lai, Lee Cheuk-yan, Leung Kwok-hung and Cyd Ho were jailed between eight and 18 months. Martin Lee, an octogenarian nicknamed the city’s “Father of Democracy,” Ng and Albert Ho were given suspended jail sentences.
Their convictions two years ago and their sentences were widely seen as another blow to the city’s flagging democracy movement under an unprecedented crackdown by Beijing and Hong Kong authorities.
Judge Andrew Macrae said he and other judges of the Court of Appeal unanimously quashed their convictions over the charge of organizing an unauthorized assembly, but their convictions over taking part in an unauthorized assembly were upheld.
Hence, the four activists who served their jail terms in prison have had part of their sentences in the case quashed, he said.
Macrae and his colleagues said in a written judgment that an organizer must take some responsibility for or do something active to plan and arrange an action.
“An inference that because they were at the front of the procession, they must have organized it ... is not a realistic or suitable substitute for evidence that they were involved in its organization,” the judgment said. / AP