Eight people have been jailed for up to 56 months for rioting in Jordan in November 2019, when the besieged Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) campus saw violent clashes erupt between protesters and police.
Cheung Wing-sheung, Lam Chin-ching, Liu Hong-leung, Lee Pink-lok, Auman Yick, Li Ka-vi, Poon Wing-kit and Au Hoi-fung appeared in front of District Court Judge Ernest Lin for their sentencing on Friday.
Seven of the defendants were convicted of rioting last month, while one person pleaded guilty earlier.
In reading out the reasoning for the sentences, Judge Lin said the occurrence of the riot stemmed from the PolyU siege, which saw the campus surrounded by police for days as protesters remained trapped inside. According to local media, Lin said protesters were hurling Molotov cocktails non-stop, describing the scene with an art illustration called Map of Hell, also known as Divine Comedy, by artist Botticelli. The painting depicted punishments that happened in hell.
Protests erupted in June 2019 over a since-axed extradition bill. They escalated into sometimes violent displays of dissent against police behaviour, amid calls for democracy and anger over Beijing’s encroachment. Demonstrators demanded an independent probe into police conduct, amnesty for those arrested and a halt to the characterisation of protests as “riots.”
‘Not ad hoc’
Lin said the Jordan riot was one of the largest-scale and most violent incidents, “causing a great trauma” for the public and polarised society. He said no evidence showed that anyone was injured in the incident, but that was only because the police force was trained and did not fully utilise the weapons they had.
The judge also said the riot did not happen on an ad hoc basis, local media reported. He said the demonstrators may not have been as organised as the military, but they had a certain arrangement and shared a same goal – that was, to rescue other demonstrators who were trapped on the PolyU campus. There were around 1,000 people at the riot, he added.
Uneasy sentencing
Local media reported that Lin said he felt uneasy sentencing one of the defendants, Yick, who was a law graduate-turned YouTuber during the hearing. The judge stated up that Yick had done a lot of voluntary work and produced videos for non-profit organisations, adding he should have been a “pillar of society.”
Lin also said other defendants, many of them young people, were not wicked people to begin with and perhaps committed the offence as a result of the social environment at the time. He added they may have been influenced and misguided by some scholars and believed that it was acceptable to achieve justice by illegal means.
The judge set five years imprisonment as the starting point for the seven defendants who were found guilty by conviction. Some deductions were given after mitigation.
Cheung and Lam were given 56 months, Li, Liu, Lee and Yick 50 months and Poon 48 months. Au, who pleaded guilty, was jailed for 44 months.
Correction 17:03: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated the sentences for four of the defendants as 56 months, instead of 50 months. We regret the error.
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