Eight Guilty Of Breaching Gathering Ban With Protest

Eight activists from the Labour Party and the League of Social Democrats were on Wednesday given 14-day suspended prison sentences, after being found guilty of breaching the government's public gathering limit by staging a protest on Labour Day last year.

Prosecutors told Eastern Court that Leung Kwok-hung, Lee Cheuk-yan, Avery Ng, Raphael Wong, Steven Kwok, Stanley Ho, Tsang Kin-shing and Mak Tak-ching violated the ban on gatherings of more than four people on the morning of May 1, 2020.

They had been given penalty tickets by the police as they attempted to march from Admiralty Centre to the government's headquarters.

The demonstration was to protest against a ban on Labour Day demonstrations.

Defence lawyers had argued that the protest had only lasted around 10 minutes and the participants had worn masks and kept a distance from each other.

But in sentencing, magistrate Cheang Kei-hong said the fact that the activists had shared microphones and loudspeakers showed that they had gathered "with a common purpose".

He said the group had ignored several police warnings and had willingly violated the gathering restrictions imposed amid the pandemic.

Speaking after the hearing, Ng – from the League of Social Democrats – described the magistrate's decision as "absurd".

“Usually it [violating the gathering ban] is punishable by a fine, but we are now being given two weeks of imprisonment with suspended sentences. It shows the absurdity of the judge... basically saying that our right to protest is not an absolute right and should be punishable by jail,” he said.