AP on the conviction of Jackie Chen…
A social worker who tried to mediate during the height of the 2019 anti-government protests in Hong Kong was convicted of rioting Tuesday in the latest case that signaled the tough stance the authorities have taken toward political cases.
Jackie Chen was part of a group of social workers who often carried a loudspeaker seeking to mediate between police and protesters during the social unrest. She was freed at her first trial in September 2020, but the secretary of justice appealed and a court ordered a retrial by another judge.
(As HKFP – linked below – says: ‘…Chen was acquitted midway through her trial in September 2020, when the judge said her conduct and speech did not amount to taking part in an unlawful assembly, let alone a riot.’)
In the retrial, the prosecution accused Chen, who used a loudspeaker to ask police officers to calm down and not to use their guns to fire non-lethal bullets, of participating in a riot during a protest in August 2019. Chen pleaded not guilty.
Judge May Chung wrote in her verdict that Chen had continuously shouted unfounded accusations against the police and suggested the officers’ actions involved the use of excessive force or were too rapid. Chen had used her social worker role, claiming to be “safeguarding justice,” to back the protesters, the judge said.
Chung ruled that the only reasonable inference was that Chen intended to participate in the riot.
Can anyone possibly think of more than one reasonable inference from these facts? Can anyone think of ones that are perhaps more reasonable?
From the HKFP story…
Deputy District Judge May Chung announced the guilty verdict on Tuesday afternoon, seconds after taking her seat at the bench. She said she had written down her reasons for the verdict and would adjourn the hearing for 20 to 30 minutes to allow the defence and the prosecution to read them.
Chen’s supporters in the public gallery yelled: “We’ll come visit you” and “Hang in there,” as the social worker took off her earrings, rings, bracelet, and necklace and handed them to a relative through a gap in the defendant’s dock.
Chen, 48, looked up to the public gallery and said, “[I’m] OK! Don’t worry. Take care of yourselves!”
Her family members, seated in the first row of the public gallery, were seen comforting each other.
Presumably the judge who made the initial assessment is one of the several who have “retired” to the UK?
If Chen’s conviction was based on her shouting “unfounded accusations”, should it not be required for the prosecution to prove that they were unfounded? Did they do so? If not, this would surely justify an appeal.
In Hong Kong when can and can’t an acquittal be appealed by the government? I always see prosecutors appealing acquittals against individuals in criminal cases and then charging people for the same crime even though double jeopardy supposedly existed in HK?
STRUTH: Not only are land sales suspended, the plan going forward it to give it away:
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/hong-kong-economy/article/3301968/i-can-grant-you-piece-land-hong-kongs-paul-chan-eyes-ai-tech-firms
“It is not only about the government selling the land after completing all the land levelling and infrastructure.”
He gave the example of European and US drug companies that wanted to sell products in mainland China but could not conduct clinical trials there, saying they might opt to set up in the Lok Ma Chau Loop.
So now apart from ensuring another Cyberport property development rerun, the HK tax payer will subsidize Big Pharma.
But of course the intention is in fact to give land to mainland enterprises.
And it could be interpreted as an acknowledgement that genuine demand for the hectares of ponds to be filled in is proving to be a fraction of its doomed footprint.
Hopefully there is hope once this Marxist-Leninist authoritarian BS is over.
https://svjt.se/svjt/1992/646