A total of 10,260 people had been arrested in relation to the 2019 anti-extradition bill protests and the authorities had prosecuted more than a quarter of them as of April, according to official figures.

Of the 2,608 people who have been prosecuted, 750 were charged with rioting. Other charges for those who have been arrested included illegal assembly, wounding, common assault, arson, criminal damage, obstructing police officers among others, the latest police figures showed.

As of the end of April, 715 people have been convicted, 277 were bound over and four were granted care or protection orders. Charges have been dropped for 51 people, and 224 were released after being cleared of their charges in court, according to the figures.

Of the arrested protesters, more than 1,700 were under 18, the legal adult age by Hong Kong’s laws. At least 115 of them have been convicted for different charges.

The city’s Juvenile Offenders Ordinance offers some protection to people under the age of 16, meaning that young people aged between 16 and 17 were not covered, said Althea Suen, a former president of the University of Hong Kong’s student union.

Based on news reports and online sources, Suen estimated that 71 people who had been convicted were in this age range.

Some have been ordered to serve custodial terms in rehabilitation centers. Unlike adult inmates, however, they are not eligible for reduced sentences based on good behavior, Suen said.

Such treatment failed to uphold the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which states that detention is the last resort for children, she added.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam said in her policy address last November that the police would consider handling serious cases involving protesters younger than 18 by administering cautions or through bind-over orders.

As of November, 19 underage protesters have been released after a police superintendent administered cautions to them or they were bound over. Between November and late April, six more young people were released on these grounds.

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