Occupy Leaders Played Minor Roles, Appeal Told

The lawyer representing Occupy movement co-founder Benny Tai argued that he and other campaign leaders only played supporting roles in the 79-day protests in 2014 at the start of an appeal hearing on Tuesday.

The Occupy trio are among nine leading figures linked to the protests trying to have their convictions quashed.

Eric Cheung, representing Tai, told the High Court that the former University of Hong Kong legal academic had no control over the protesters, noting that many of them left Tim Mei Avenue after he declared the official start of the movement in the small hours of September 28, 2014.

Cheung said Tai and the other two Occupy Central co-founders – scholar Chan Kin-man and reverend Chu Yiu-ming – only took up “supporting” rather than leadership roles from then on because the protests did not proceed as planned.

The lawyer said the trio had expected the campaign to last only five days with up to 10,000 participants demonstrating on Chater Road, instead of a much larger scale 79-day protests that took place in different areas.

Cheung also asked the judges to consider the 2014 demonstrations as "acts of civil disobedience in the most peaceful form".

Tai was found guilty by the District Court in 2019 of conspiracy and incitement to commit public nuisance, and was granted bail as he sought to appeal against his conviction and 16-month jail sentence.

He was brought to the High Court for the hearing after he was held in custody in connection with the national security case involving last year's Legco primaries by the pro-democracy camp.

The appeal hearing has been delayed for a year due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

Chan, along with former lawmaker Shiu Ka-chun, Raphael Wong from the League of Social Democrats and former student leader Tommy Cheung, have already completed their jail sentences or community service orders.

Besides Tai, Wong is also appealing against both his conviction and sentence.

Chu, former lawmakers Tanya Chan and Lee Wing-tat, and former student leader Eason Chung were given suspended sentences in 2019.