LATEST NEWS & VIEWS
Hong Kong independence activist Edward Leung released after serving 4 years in jail
Hong Kong independence activist Edward Leung has been released from prison on Lantau Island, after spending four years at a top security facility for taking part in a riot in 2016. The 30-year-old activist’s release comes as over 150 have been arrested under the Beijing-imposed national security law, enacted in 2020, which criminalises acts and…
Hong Kong’s top court rules ‘joint enterprise’ not applicable to rioting and unlawful assembly cases
Hong Kong’s top court has ruled that the city’s prosecutors cannot indict people who are not physically present at a riot or an unlawful assembly as principal offenders using the common law principle of “joint enterprise.” However, they may still be held liable for “secondary and inchoate offences.” The Court of Final Appeal on Thursday…
COMMENTARY & ANALYSIS
Violence condemned, but storming of Hong Kong’s legislature has not dispelled public sympathy for protesters
By Kenneth Ng The consistently peaceful mass demonstrations for democracy in Hong Kong have won international acclaim. But this record was somewhat tarnished by the storming of the legislature by protesters in the evening of July 1. Nevertheless, public opinion in Hong Kong society remains divided. Condemnations of violence went parallel with sympathy for the…
After winning asylum in Germany, resistance is fertile, not futile, for Hong Kong activist Ray Wong
By Daniel C. Tsang Ray Wong, who skipped bail and fled to Europe, told me on 15 May last year: “Hey Dan, Germany has approved my application [for asylum]!” I could sense his relief. But he didn’t want to go public yet, and he didn’t for another year. Flashback to Hong Kong, Wong was overly…
FEATURES
‘It’s the same dictatorship’: Veteran activist Lee Cheuk-yan on keeping the flame of the Tiananmen protests alive
Veteran activist Lee Cheuk-yan has spent the past three decades resisting authoritarianism. In 1989, roused by the rallying cries for democracy, the then 32-year-old travelled to Tiananmen Square to deliver donations raised during a Hong Kong benefit concert to protesters. He was detained and made to sign a letter of remorse, around the time the tanks…
Rights lawyer Chris Ng recalls Mong Kok’s night of unrest and ponders the city’s legal future
Lawyer Chris Ng still recalls the chaos of the unrest in Mong Kok in 2016, when clashes over the authorities’ attempts to clear street hawkers escalated into brick hurling and the police firing warning shots into the air. As the protests wore on into the early hours of the morning, more and more demonstrators were arrested…
Imprisoned but not forgotten: New group seeks to support Hong Kong’s jailed democracy activists
“When Nathan was arrested at Civic Square, I was beside him. He told me: ‘No need to panic. It will be fine.’ When he was sentenced to imprisonment today, he [still] reassured me, ‘Don’t worry. Take care.’ He was, in fact, the one [in trouble], but he would always comfort people around him first.” – Shek…