A Hong Kong court has reduced the years-long jail terms of 10 people found guilty of rioting near the besieged Polytechnic University (PolyU) in 2019 by up to six months following their appeals.
The Court of Appeal (CA) on Wednesday ruled in favour of the 10 petitioners in their appeals against sentencing, after they were jailed for up to six years for rioting in one of the most violent protester-police confrontations during the 2019 protests and unrest.
The PolyU siege in November 2019 saw hundreds of protesters trapped inside the university campus, surrounded by a police blockade. Large groups of protesters also gathered in the vicinity of the campus in an effort to overwhelm the police deployment.
The 10 people in the case attempted to break through the police siege from within the campus on November 18 but were arrested on their way out. They were sentenced to jail terms ranging from three years and 10 months to six years in January last year.
Three CA judges – Derek Pang, Maggie Poon, and William Tam – wrote in a judgment that they agreed with the observation of the trial judge, Adriana Tse, who described the protesters involved “as though they were a seasoned army.”
The appellate judges, however, said the starting point of six years’ imprisonment adopted by the trial judge for one of the rioting charges was too heavy and should be replaced by 5.5 years.
Tse Yuen-siu, who was originally sentenced to four years and eight and a half months in jail for possessing a walkie-talkie, which the trial judge said had aggravated his offence, received the largest reduction of six months in the CA judgment.
Eight people were granted a four- to 4.5-month cut to their jail terms after the appellate judges adopted the lower starting sentence.
Chu Kin-kwan, a nurse who pleaded not guilty during the trial, was originally sentenced to six years behind bars after the trial judge convicted her of rioting.
The appellate court used its discretion to give her a two-month sentence reduction after taking into account her voluntary participation in combating the Covid-19 pandemic as a nurse working in a public hospital in 2020.
But the CA judges rejected the bids to overturn the rioting convictions launched by Chu and Ma Kin-long, another defendant in the case who was also sentenced to six years behind bars after the trial judge found him guilty.
Ma also did not receive any sentencing reduction in the CA judgment.
| Name | Original sentence | Sentence after appeal |
| Mok Tsz-mei | 52 months | 47.5 months |
| Chu Kin-kwan | 72 months | 70 months |
| Alex Ming | 48 months | 43.5 months |
| Cheng Cheuk-lam | 52 months | 47.5 months |
| Tse Yuen-siu | 56.5 months | 50.5 months |
| Lam Yuk-kwan | 52 months | 47.5 months |
| Felix Sze | 52 months | 47.5 months |
| Leung Kung-ho | 46 months | 42 months |
| Cheung Chin-ming | 61 months | 56.5 months |
| Chan Ka-fung | 52 months | 47.5 months |
| Ma Kin-long | 72 months | Appeals rejected |
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.”
