Not a great day for Hong Kong justice
Seven people, including former legislator Lam Cheuk-ting, are convicted of rioting after going to Yuen Long MTR station (unlike the police, who mysteriously failed to show up) when a violent mob ambushed passengers on the night of July 21, 2019.
AP reports…
Prosecutors accused former legislator Lam Cheuk-ting and the six other defendants of provoking members of a group of about 100 men armed with wooden poles and metal rods who attacked protesters and bystanders at a train station. The men, all clad in white shirts, in contrast with the black worn by protesters, claimed to be protecting their homeland in Yuen Long, a residential district in Hong Kong’s New Territories.
Dozens of people, including Lam, were injured in the violence, a key chapter that escalated the protest movement as the public criticized police for their delayed response. The landmark ruling could shape the city’s historical narrative of the incident.
At the time, the attack (accompanied by suspicions of collusion between pro-Beijing forces and the police) prompted shock even among top government officials. The official version now has it that it was some sort of conflict between two groups.
Reuters story…
On the night of July 21, 2019, more than 100 white-shirted men stormed the Yuen Long MTR station in the territory’s northwest, attacking passers-by and journalists with clubs and sticks. Ten of the assailants ended up being convicted for rioting and conspiring to wound with intent.
Lam, 47, a long-standing member of the Democratic Party, was arrested 13 months after the incident and charged with rioting and helping instigate the violence.
He told the court he had rushed to the scene to help, but ended up being taken to hospital with head, mouth, arm and wrist injuries that required 16-18 stitches, after being attacked.
District court judge Stanley Chan said he did not believe Lam went to mediate, but instead wanted to extract some political advantage while his Facebook posts had drawn more people like a “magnet”.
“His purpose was to provoke emotional confrontation with the white shirted people and fan the flames,” Chan said.
…He rejected arguments that some had acted with reasonable self defence or to protect others, but had displayed “riotous behaviour” that led the white-clad gang to be further provoked.
The judge seems to be good at reading people’s minds. From HKFP…
Judge Stanley Chan on Thursday said he did not believe that Lam had been exercising his role as a lawmaker to mediate the conflict or monitor police enforcement at Yuen Long station. Chan said Lam was trying to take advantage of the situation for his political benefit.
About Anus Ho’s white shirt gangsters: several days before the white shirt attack on the Yuen Long MTR station on 21st of July 2019, the local village people already knew that “something” was going to happen on that day, at that time. They advised their nieces and nephews to stay away from the place. So, if they knew, the HK popo knew too. Ergo: the HK popo was not just “mysteriously absent” but complicit in the brutal attack on that day, and so was Anus Ho.
@Lo Wu: Yes, EVERYONE in HK with a mobile phone and any ounce of intellectual capability knows that. Problem is, if you aren’t aligned with the “correct side” like Anus, the righteous white shirts and the right honourable judge Chan is, you’re f**ked.
Therein lies the problem of existing in HK now: if you’re a normie Hongkey but with a sense of right and wrong (aka “justice”)…sense of what a functioning, decent society should be like…with expectations of basic human rights (formerly protected by the so-called Basic Law) then you must go day to day with your HEAD BOWED, knowing those concepts are gone and if you dare raise the issue, your skull will be cracked upon and you’ll be imprisoned and forced into poverty until you REALIZE you’re not part of the “correct side” and that side makes/enforces how society is now.
You’re either a head bower or a smug, putrid POS.
That gecko looks well-fed and was probably just digesting some pest that was lingering in your kitchen. You should thank him you see him!
The world will be a better place when Judge Stanley Chan Kwong-Chi finally retires and stops subjecting HKers to his bizarre interpretation of “justice”. Over the years he has come up with several judgements that were so egregiously detached from reality that he really should have been put out to pasture long ago.
(Example: https://smogsblog.wordpress.com/2010/01/06/procurement-by-false-pretences-the-hk-legal-system-makes-an-ass-of-itself/ )
When a mob turns up already armed, they don’t really need provoking.
Does Judge Chan realize that there could be people in the West (or maybe even in Hong Kong) who might think his purpose is to provoke further emotional confrontation with the white-shirted people and fan the flames? And who might think that he is not exercising his role as a judge to mediate the conflict or monitor police enforcement at Yuen Long station, but is instead trying to take advantage of the situation for his political benefit?
Sad, sad, sad…..