Avery Ng Found Guilty Over Liaison Office Protest

League of Social Democrats’ chairman Avery Ng was on Wednesday found guilty of two charges of inciting others to take part in an unlawful assembly over a violent protest outside Beijing's liaison office in 2016.

Five others were also convicted over the chaotic scenes, two pleaded guilty, and one was acquitted.

Police had said that two officers were injured as around 4,000 people swarmed the area outside the liaison office in Western on November 6, 2016 to protest over Beijing's interpretation of the Basic Law on Legco oath-taking.

Hundreds of baton-wielding officers were deployed to deal with the unauthorised protest, and they eventually dispersed the demonstrators in the early hours, chasing some through the streets.

West Kowloon Magistracy heard that Ng had encouraged demonstrators on two occasions to climb over barricades outside the liaison office and to challenge the police cordon set up.

Magistrate Peony Wong said Ng must have known that police wouldn't just allow this to happen and that some degree of violence would ensue.

She said Ng had ignored police warnings and disrupted the peace, leaving police officers and journalists covering the protest fearing for their safety.

Outside court after the ruling, Ng said he would be appealing against his conviction, and in his view it was some of the police officers present on the night who had acted unlawfully.

"It was solely due to the unreasonable coordination and unlawful action by individual policemen that caused the chaos," he said.

"You clearly saw police violence being unlawfully used against protesters."

Five co-defendants were also found guilty of public order offences.

Demosisto chairman Ivan Lam and his former party mate Derek Lam had both earlier pleaded guilty to incitement and unlawful assembly charges, and their lawyers called for non-custodial sentences considering their young ages.

Another man, Chau Shu-wing, was acquitted of an illegal assembly charge after the magistrate found there was insufficient evidence to prove he was trying to break through the police cordon by standing on top of the barricade.

The other eight were all released on bail and are due to be sentenced on September 11.

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