Man jailed 10 weeks for assaulting police on Tiananmen crackdown anniv. and outside court
Hong Kong Free Press
A 24-year-old man has been jailed for 10 weeks for assaulting Hong Kong police on two occasions, once outside a court and one on the anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown.
Fok Shun-yin, described as unemployed, pleaded guilty at Eastern Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday to three counts of assaulting police. Magistrate Don So Man-lung passed the sentence, the Witness reported.
Fok had been remanded in custody since October 10 in Siu Lam Psychiatric Centre, with the defence saying he suffered from mild intellectual disability.
Local media said Fok had been a frequent court visitor along with his aunt to observe trials linked to the 2019 protests and unrest and national security.
The court heard that Fok’s aunt was shouting slogans related to the National Security Law in Causeway Bay on the evening of June 4, when police attempted to pull her into a restricted area and separate her from others.
On that occasion Fok hit two policemen in the face.
In a statement the following day about the incident, police said a 24-year-old man and a 69-year-old woman had “acted suspiciously in public” the previous night. Police said the man had attacked two officers after the pair were intercepted. The woman was detained for alleged public disorder.
In the early evening of September 24, five to seven people including the defendant and his aunt chased after a prison vehicle outside the High Court. They shouted slogans and waved at the vehicle, according to court details.
Two uniformed police officers asked the group to get off the road. Most people complied, but Fok and his aunt did not. Two police officers approached the pair and asked them to show their identity cards, and Fok hit one of them in the face.
The forbidden vigil
Hong Kong was for decades one of the few places on Chinese soil where annual vigils were held to commemorate the victims of the 1989 crackdown in Beijing on pro-democracy protesters. But police banned the gathering at Causeway Bay’s Victoria Park in 2020 citing Covid-19 restrictions, and imposed the same ban the following year.
No official commemoration has been held since the vigil’s organiser – the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China – disbanded in September 2021.
The Tiananmen crackdown occurred on June 4, 1989, ending months of student-led demonstrations in China. It is estimated that hundreds, perhaps thousands, died when the People’s Liberation Army cracked down on protesters in Beijing.
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