HK Activists Convicted In Japan, Face Deportation

Two Hong Kong activists who staged a protest outside Japan's notorious Yasukuni Shrine last year have been convicted by a court in Tokyo and are expected to be deported from the country very soon.

Alex Kwok and Yim Man-wa were found guilty on Thursday of trespassing, and were given suspended prison terms of eight and six months respectively.

The pair, who are members of the Hong Kong-based activist group Action Committee for Defending the Diaoyu Islands, had been detained by the Japanese authorities since last December, when they set fire to a symbolic ancestral tablet at the shrine which honours the country’s war dead.

Kwok and Yim were demanding an apology from Tokyo over the Nanjing Massacre which began in 1937, and which China says killed more than 300,000 people.

The Action Committee for Defending the Diaoyu Islands said in a statement that Japanese immigration authorities are making deportation arrangements for the two activists, and they could be back in Hong Kong as early as Friday.