Hong Kong doctor receives suspended deregistration over 2019 rioting conviction
Hong Kong Free Press
A Hong Kong doctor who was jailed for rioting during the 2019 extradition bill protests has received a suspended order striking his name off the professional register.
The Medical Council of Hong Kong on Friday ordered the registration of Dr Tse Tat-chi, who was jailed for four years in March last year, to be suspended for nine months due to his rioting conviction.
But the deregistration order would itself be suspended for 36 months, the professional body for the city’s medical practitioners ruled after holding an inquiry last month.
Tse was arrested on September 29, 2019, when Hong Kong saw pro-democracy protesters join an unauthorised “global anti-totalitarianism march.” Chaos erupted in various districts on Hong Kong Island, as demonstrators wearing black occupied roads and hurled petrol bombs, bricks and other objects at the government headquarters in Admiralty. Police deployed tear gas and fired blue-dyed water in an attempt to disperse the crowds.
According to the findings of the Inquiry Panel of the Medical Council, Tse was at the planter area of Harcourt Road outside government headquarters. Protesters had set up roadblocks and set water-filled barriers on fire in that area.
Tse, who was wearing all-black, tried to flee after he was spotted by police during a dispersal operation. He was eventually subdued and apprehended.
The panel’s report said the doctor was also wearing black protective gloves and held a hiking pole with some white cable wires attached. He was carrying a black knapsack filled with medical supplies, including bronchial dilators for inhalation, antiseptic solution, gauze, bandage and surgical gloves.
The doctor, who obtained his qualifications at the University of Hong Kong in 2016, pleaded guilty in October 2022 to rioting.
“The Inquiry Panel was therefore entitled to take the said conviction as conclusively proven against Dr Tse. Accordingly, the Inquiry Panel found Dr Tse guilty of the disciplinary offence charged against him,” the council wrote.
Protests erupted in June 2019 over a since-axed extradition bill. They escalated into sometimes violent displays of dissent against police behaviour, amid calls for democracy and anger over Beijing’s encroachment. Demonstrators demanded an independent probe into police conduct, amnesty for those arrested and a halt to the characterisation of protests as “riots.”
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