(19 Nov 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Hong Kong – 19 November 2024
1. Various of prison vans, believed to be carrying the activist, arriving at court car park
2. Various of police outside court queuing up outside court for a seat
3. Mid of Philip Bowring, the husband of Claudia Mo, leaving court and surrounded by journalists
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Philip Browing, husband of Claudia Mo:
“It’s nearly fours years, it’s actually already, so, I suppose, you know, maybe it’s not too much longer. But it’s been a long time already, given the nature of the case.”
5. Mid of Chan Po-ying, wife of defendant Leung Kwok-hung talking to journalists after court
6. SOUNDITE (English) Chan Po-ying, wife Leung Kwok-hung:
“The sentencing is more or less as I expected, even Long Hair also has the same expectation. So we have no illusion that he will have a lenient sentence. So you can say that it’s a good news that there’s no more harsh imprisonment. But I want to emphasize one thing very clear that it is an unfair trial and it’s an unreasonable trail. So even one day, they don’t deserve to be in prison.”
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Emilia Wong, girlfriend of Ventus Lau:
‘Of course it will silence more people because you see how a primary can be illegal and lead to ten years of sentencing, so of course it will silence more people.”
8. Various of court exterior after court sentencing
STORYLINE:
Forty-five ex-lawmakers and activists were sentenced to four to 10 years in prison Tuesday in Hong Kong’s biggest national security case under a Beijing-imposed law that crushed a once-thriving pro-democracy movement.
They were tried under the 2020 national security law for their roles in an unofficial primary election. Prosecutors said their aim was to paralyze Hong Kong’s government and force the city’s leader to resign by aiming to win a legislative majority and using it to block government budgets indiscriminately.
Legal scholar Benny Tai, who was widely seen as the organizer of the unofficial primary, received the longest sentence of 10 years. The judges said the sentences had been reduced for defendants who said they were unaware the plan to secure a majority in the legislature and stall governance was unlawful.
However, the court said the penalties were not reduced for Tai and former lawmaker Alvin Yeung, as they are lawyers who were “absolutely adamant in pushing for the implementation of the Scheme.”
In the judgment posted online, the judges wrote that Tai essentially “advocated for a revolution” by publishing a series of articles over a period of months that traced his thinking, even though in his mitigation letter Tai said the steps were “never intended to be used as blueprint for any political action.”
Two of the 47 original defendants had been acquitted earlier this year. The rest either pleaded guilty to or were found guilty of conspiracy to commit subversion. The judges said in the verdict that the activists’ plans to effect change through the unofficial primary would have undermined the government’s authority and created a constitutional crisis.
The judges rejected the reasoning from some defendants that the scheme would never have materialized, stating that “all the participants had put in every endeavor to make it a success."
In the judgment, the judges highlighted that a great deal of time, resources and money had been put into the organization of the primary election.
Some of the defendants waved at their relatives in the courtroom after they were sentenced.
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