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Martin Lee, Jimmy Lai and other Hong Kong pro-democracy heavyweights in court tomorrow

蘋果日報 2021/02/15 22:00


Up to nine veteran pro-democracy activists and former lawmakers in Hong Kong, including Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai and the 82-year-old “father of democracy” Martin Lee, will appear in court on Tuesday to face charges in connection with the protests that roiled the city in 2019.
The nine defendants —  Lee, Lai, Lee Cheuk-yan, Margaret Ng, Leung Kwok-hung, Cyd Ho, Albert Ho, Leung Yiu-chung and Au Nok-hin — have been charged with organizing and knowingly taking part in an unauthorized assembly on Aug. 18, 2019, as part of the mass anti-government demonstrations that year.
The case, scheduled for the first day after the four-day Lunar New Year holiday, is widely viewed as a major crackdown on the former British colony’s once-tolerated dissenting voices. This is especially so given the defendants face charges under the national security law imposed by Beijing in June last year, seen by many as an encroachment on the civic freedoms guaranteed to Hongkongers on the territory’s return to Chinese rule in 1997.
The arrests were the highest-profile detentions made by Hong Kong authorities since the 2019 movement. Among them, only Au has said he intends to plead guilty.
The court case is not just a matter for the nine defendants on trial, but for the rights of Hongkongers to freedom of assembly, said 64-year-old Lee Cheuk-yan said, adding that he was “fully prepared” to go to jail.
“This is a very important case politically,” said Leung Kwok-hung, also 64, explaining that the case has embroiled activists across a broad spectrum of the city’s democracy movement.
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