By Lu Xi
2021.10.19
The students are convicted of 'rioting' after being arrested defending
their campus from an assault by riot police, who fired 1,000 rounds of
tear gas in a single day.
A court in Hong Kong on Tuesday handed
down jail terms of nearly five years to five students in connection
with the siege by riot police of the Chinese University of Hong Kong
(CUHK) in November 2019.
Lau
Chun-yuk, Ko Chi-pan, Chan Lik-sik and Hui Yi-chuen, aged 20 to 23,
were sentenced to four years and nine months' imprisonment by the
District Court, which jailed Foo Hoi-ching for four years and eleven
months, government broadcaster RTHK reported on Tuesday.
The
court found them guilty of rioting and breaching a face mask ban in
place at the time, while Foo and Hui were also convicted of possess
offensive weapons or items that could be used in such a way.
Deputy
district judge Kathie Cheung said she had handed down the heavy
sentences as a deterrent, because the students had engaged in violence
against law enforcement officers, RTHK said.
The
students had been wearing the black clothing of the 2019 protest
movement, including gear to protect them against the tear gas, pepper
spray, rubber bullets and police beatings that characterized that year's
protests.
Cheung said this showed they had intended to join in, and likened the scene to a "battlefield."
CUHK
students put up an organized defense when police tried to enter the
CUHK campus, setting up makeshift barricades with furniture, trash cans
and umbrellas, and throwing Molotov cocktails and other projectiles at
police, as police rained tear gas and other "non-lethal" munitions down
on them, leaving the entire campus wreathed with CS gas.
'Pillar of Shame'
Riot police went on to lay siege to the Polytechnic University, meeting with similar levels of resistance, later in the month.
Meanwhile,
the row over the University of Hong Kong (HKU)'s plan to remove the
"Pillar of Shame" sculpture commemorating the victims of the 1989
Tiananmen massacre has intensified with the withdrawal of Chicago-based
law firm Mayer Brown from its representation of the university after an
international outcry.
The firm had written to the
now-disbanded Tiananmen vigil organizers, the Hong Kong Alliance in
Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, requesting the
sculpture's removal by 5.00 p.m. on Oct. 13, sparking the anger of its
creator Jens Galschiøt, who said he has hired a lawyer to protect his
property, which was only on loan to the Alliance.
Following
Mayer Brown's withdrawal, former Hong Kong leader Leung Chun-ying took
to his Facebook account on Oct. 18 to denounce the firm as having been
"infiltrated by foreign foreign powers" and calling on all "Chinese"
clients to withdraw their business. It was unclear whether he meant
people of Chinese descent or citizens of the People's Republic of China.
Leung,
now a high-ranking official in a ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
political advisory body, said the firm had abandoned HKU and bowed to
political pressure coming from the U.S., and called for an investigation
by the Hong Kong Law Society.
Political
denunciations by Chinese officials and CCP-backed media have often
preceded investigations by the authorities in Hong Kong, where the
imposition of a draconian national security law by Beijing from July 1, 2020 has ushered in a citywide crackdown on public dissent and democratic political opposition.
Mayer Brown has declined to comment further since announcing its withdrawal as HKU's representative on Oct. 15.
Ethical conflicts
Danish sculptor Jens Galschiøt welcomed Mayer Brown's
withdrawal, which came after more than 20 groups wrote an open letter
protesting its involvement, and said Leung's diatribe was "completely
crazy," and had pushed the incident to a whole new level.
He said it was important to keep alive the memory of the June 1989 massacre
by the People's Liberation Army that ended weeks of student-led
protests, hunger-strikes and calls for democracy and the rule of law,
and for the world to continue to pay tribute to those who died.
Benedict
Rogers, founder of the U.K.-based rights group Hong Kong Watch, which
signed the letter, said the campaign had been successful, and said
Leung's call for a boycott of Mayer Brown showed how companies that do
business with China are increasingly being forced to face up to ethical
conflicts.
Zhou Fengsuo, a former 1989 student
leader and founder of the U.S.-based rights group Humanitarian China,
which also signed, said China is now openly trying to manipulate foreign
companies and change the rules of doing business internationally.
"The
CCP has made a deliberate choice to stand in opposition to the
international community," Zhou told RFA. "It's actually a kind of
decoupling."
"International companies, including
lawyers, have a tendency to cave in to Beijing for profit, but now that
this kind of confrontation is getting more and more direct, they may be
forced to make a choice in the end," he said.
"These
law firms that sit on the fence need to be more vigilant about the
risks of doing business in China," Zhou said. "U.S. companies need to
pick a side; they can't be on both."
Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
(www.rfa.org)
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