Young democracy activist Agnes Chow has again failed in her attempt to be released on bail and will continue to serve out a 10-month jail term in Hong Kong pending appeal.

Chow, 24, is not in good shape, according to her lawyers on Wednesday. She has been locked up for 17 days, since being taken into custody on Nov. 23 for pleading guilty to charges regarding an unauthorised assembly outside the police headquarters last summer.

Mrs Justice Judianna Barnes, sitting in the High Court, rejected the bail application after listening to the arguments of Chow’s defense barristers, Lawrence Lok SC and Jeffrey Tam.

Later in the day, the lawyers paid a visit to Chow and told reporters that she felt disappointment and regret about the court decision. Chow was not in the pink of health, the lawyers said, but added that she was trying hard to adapt to prison life. She also called on her comrades to continue paying attention to imprisoned protesters, they said.

Chow’s incarceration started after she admitted last month, alongside fellow activists Joshua Wong, 24, and Ivan Lam, 26, to inciting and organising an unauthorised assembly outside the police headquarters in Wan Chai on June 21 last year. The trio were handed prison sentences for violations of the Public Order Ordinance. Wong and Lam respectively received 13½  months and seven months behind bars.

It is understood that the trio plan to appeal against the sentencing and have submitted the relevant documents to court.

On Wednesday morning, Chow showed up in the courtroom accompanied by correctional services officers. Bespectacled with her long hair tied up at the back, she seemed to be in better spirits than last Wednesday, when the sentence was passed. From time to time Chow would chat with her legal representatives and glance over to the public gallery, and during the barrister’s presentation, she frequently placed her palms, overlapped, on her chest, closed her eyes or bowed her head.

Earlier on Dec. 2, magistrate Wong Sze-lai at Eastern Magistrates’ Court said during the sentencing that she had made reference to a judgement on clashes that broke out at the Civic Square of the government headquarters in 2014 and triggered the 79-day Occupy Central protests for democracy. Both cases were related to criminal charges under the Public Order Ordinance, she said.

The magistrate further said that she also took into account behaviors by the three defendants which created a potential risk of violence, and believed deterrent sentences must be imposed, with immediate custody as the only option.

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