#BREAKING HK Cardinal Joseph Zen and 5 fellow democracy supporters are found guilty of failing to register the #612HumanitarianFund as a society.
Cardinal Zen refused to be given a lesser sentence. Presiding magistrate Ada Yim proposed to put 6 Ds into 3 categories according to their roles in the fund (D2; D345; D56) when considering their sentences.
Zen told Margaret Ng: we five are all the same, all the same.
The 5 former trustees are each fined HKD4,000 and the former secretary HKD2,500.
Cardinal Zen: “I saw many poeple overseas are concerned with a Cardinal being arrested. I was a member of the fund. Hong Kong has not seen any damage on its religious freedom. I hope emphasis won’t be placed too much on my religious status. I am a supporter of humanitarian work.”
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A bus transferring residents from Guiyang to QT camp crashed and killed 27
13 Oct
A man put up large protest banners on Sitong Bridge in Beijing. He was taken away and no update of whereabouts since.
24 Oct
An mainland Chinese engineer working in HK was arrested for putting up posters supporting the Sitong Bridge man’s cause. He was released on police bail.
Late October
Workers fled Foxconn iPhone factory in Zhengzhou and walked miles to escape lockdown.
7 Nov
A 55yo woman jumped from her home in a residential building in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia. Her daughter watched her dying while no one opened the iron door set up for lockdown.
11 Nov
State Council issued the “20 Articles” to improve covid control measures.
#Thread about HK prosecution's opening statement on the #StandNews "conspiracy to publish seditious publications" case.
In the 53-page document, the prosecutor wrote 3 times that the seditious intent in the articles were "self-evident" 不言而喻/不宣而告.
The prosecution said the crux of their case is not about the defendants, namely Best Pencil Ltd, Chung Pui-kuen and Patrick Lam "taking actual actions in accordance with their unlawful agreement", but that they "had reached an unlawful agreement to publish seditious publications"
As said on the first day, the prosecution said they do not have to prove the seditious intent in the defendants; they only have to prove that the defendants were aware of the seditious intent in the articles.
District Court #NSL judge Kwok Wai-kin ruled that all 17 articles - though 10 were beyond the 6-month time limit of the sedition offense - are admitted as evidence.
The 17 articles are:
1.Personal feature of @KwaiLamHo as she participated in the primaries
2.Personal feature of @owenchowkashing
3.Personal feature of Fergus Leung
4.Commentary by Chan Pui-man criticising speech crime and sedition offense
5.Commentary by @nathanlawkc entitled “under the new norm of #NSL, how should we resist and keep thinking”
6.Personal feature of @nathanlawkc after he fled to UK
7.Commentary by @nathanlawkc about resilience in a chaotic world
8.Personal feature of @tedhuichifung after he fled Hong Kong
9.Personal feature of @LeungBaggio after he fled Hong Kong
This #thread is about the first day of the trial of #StandNews and its two former chief editors Chung Pui-kuen and Patrick Lam, a case as my colleague @holmeschan_ described that "literally put press freedom on trial".
The 3 defendants, Best Pencil Ltd (#StandNews parent company) , Chung and Lam, were charged of "conspiracy to publish seditious publications", a British colonial offense the carries up to 24 months in jail.
But Chung and Lam has been in pre-trial detention for 10 months because
...sedition is now treated as a national security crime that's not in the #NSL Beijing imposed on HK in mid-2020 and hence bail is usually denied.
Both Chung and Lam have pleaded not guilty to the charge so they won't have 1/3 discount if they are convicted and facing sentence.
“He asked people to keep breathing” - a #thread about today’s mitigation of the now-disbanded #StudentPoliticism members in their #NSL case of “incitement to subversion” and ballooning issue of minimum sentence and PG discount in #NSL cases.
4 members of #StudentPoliticism Wong Yat-chin, Chan Chi-sum, Chu Wai-ying and Wong Yuen-lam, pleaded guilty in July to one count of “conspiracy to incite subversion”, an offence that carries up to 10 years in jail under #NSL. Mitigation began this morning.
Before D1 Wong Yat-chin’s lawyer started, prosecutor Vincent Lee raised in court that Wong’s FB page published a post 3 days ago in which Wong wrote he had no regret. Lee asked Wong’s lawyer to clarify whether Wong was not remorseful - an element to consider for commutation.
#Thread Hong Kong Journalists Association @HKJA_Official chairman Ronson Chan has arrived in West Kowloon Court. He is in a black tee with the Chinese characters of "press freedom" 新聞自由 at his back. Key things to watch are bail and conditions.
Ronson Chan has pleaded not guilty to the charge of obstructing police officers under the Offences Against the Person Ord, which carries up to 2 yrs in jail, and the alternative charge of obstructing a public officer under the Summary Offences Ordi whose max sentence is 6 months.
#JUSTIN Magistrate Peter Law ruled it's unnecessary to restrict Ronson Chan from leaving Hong Kong as part of his bail condition.