Tourist In Court For Taping Taiwan Suspect's Trial

A mainland student was brought before a Hong Kong magistrate on Tuesday accused of taking photos and making a video during a high-profile High Court hearing involving a Taiwan murder suspect the previous day.

Zhao Puyi, 19, had been sitting in the public gallery when the High Court jailed a man accused of killing his girlfriend in Taiwan on related money-laundering charges.

Zhao told Eastern Magistrates' Court that she is only visiting Hong Kong for a few days and is due to go back to Beijing.

But the magistrate told her not to leave the SAR until her next hearing on May 21.

The student was released on bail of HK$100.

Last year, mainland woman Tang Lin-ling was found guilty of criminal contempt of court for taking photos during a trial relating to the 2014 Occupy protests. She was jailed for seven days and ordered to pay legal costs of almost HK$200,000.

Tang had told her trial that she didn't remembering taking the photos, but if she had done so, it would have been to help the Hong Kong public understand what goes on in the city's courts.

In May last year, photos were also taken of the jurors in the Mong Kok riot trial of localist Edward Leung. The photos were sent to the judiciary with a warning that there were "a lot more to come".