Jailed Hong Kong social worker Jackie Chen has launched appeals against her conviction and nearly four-year sentence after a retrial found her guilty of rioting during the protests and unrest in 2019.
Chen, who was frequently seen on the front line of the 2019 protests with a loudhailer, was sentenced in April to three years and nine months for rioting in Wan Chai on August 31, 2019.
Chen lodged her appeals against the conviction and sentence on May 7, local media reported. The court has yet to fix a hearing date.
The social worker was initially cleared of the rioting charge midway through her first trial in September 2020, but the government successfully appealed her acquittal.
She pleaded not guilty when she faced the retrial in December 2024 but was convicted in March.
Deputy District Judge May Chung said in the ruling that Chen had made “fictitious” allegations about police when she spoke through the loudhailer during the protest, which took place near Hennessy Road and Luard Road in Wan Chai.
Chen was heard telling police not to carry out a “big chase and killing” during the demonstration, which the judge found to be “clearly” untrue.
Chen’s continuous shouting “roused the emotions of those gathered to be more hostile to police,” the judge ruled.
Three other co-defendants pleaded guilty in September, ahead of the retrial. They were sentenced to two years and five months behind bars.
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.”
