Hong Kong: Tycoon Jimmy La Sentenced for Participating in Prohibited Rally

Hong Kong press mogul Jimmy Lai and two other pro-democracy activists were convicted today of participating in a 2020 rally in Tiananmen Square to pay tribute to the victims of the crackdown.

Jimmy Lai, 74, the owner of the now-defunct Apple Daily, was found guilty of participating in a banned rally, along with former journalist Gwyneth Hove and human rights lawyer Chou Hang. τανγκ. They were also found guilty of inciting illegal assembly. Their sentences will be announced on Monday.

Authorities opposed the protest with all available police forces, special services and the army. ”

Mr. Lai and his co-defendants, Chou Hang-Tang and Gwyneth Ho, are the last people to learn their sentences. They had declared their innocence.

In practice, the convictions are of little importance, as Mr. Lai, Ms. Chow and Ms. Ho are already in jail, like dozens of other activists, as they have been the target of other prosecutions under Beijing’s Beijing National Security Act. in Hong Kong after the demonstrations that broke out two years ago.

For more than three decades, every June 4th, tens of thousands of people gathered in Victoria Park to take part in the overnight victims of Tiananmen Square.

These rallies, during which pro-democracy slogans were heard in China, had become a symbol of the civil liberties enjoyed by China’s semi-autonomous region.

But that year Beijing made it clear that it would no longer tolerate Tiananmen ceremonies in either Hong Kong or Macao, where it was possible to hold events for the 1989 events until then.

A few months ago, sixteen politicians and activists, including Joshua Wong, Hong Kong’s most prominent figure in the opposition movement, were sentenced to between six and ten months in prison for their part in the overnight 2020 suspension. .

Source: ΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ