A court in Hong Kong has handed down a three-year, one-month jail term to a former pro-democracy lawmaker for “rioting,” after he livestreamed unrest at the height of pro-democracy protests that engulfed the city in 2019.
Lam Cheuk-ting’s footage, which appeared on Facebook, showed attacks by white-clad pro-China thugs on passengers at the Yuen Long Mass Transit Railway station on July 21 of that year.
It depicted panicked passengers and bystanders calling for police help that took nearly 40 minutes to arrive.
Lam, 47, who was himself attacked for his pains, was sent to the hospital with head and arm injuries that required about 18 stitches.
Yet he was arrested for “rioting” on Aug. 26, 2020, sparking a public outcry, as part of an ongoing crackdown on public dissent in Hong Kong.
Lam is currently serving a prison sentence of nearly seven years for “subversion” as one of the 47 pro-democracy activists prosecuted for organizing a democratic primary in the summer of 2020.
He can expect to serve 34 months of his rioting sentence after that term finishes.
Since the imposition of the 2020 National Security Law, Hong Kong’s once-independent courts have tended to issue rulings along pro-Beijing lines, particularly in politically sensitive cases, according to a 2024 report by law experts at Georgetown University.
Lam, a former Legislative Council member, was sentenced on Thursday alongside six other people convicted of the same charge, despite not being among the white-clad mob.
District Judge Stanley Chan said the defendants had taken part in “another riot” inside the station that was triggered by the attacks from the men wielding sticks and clubs.
He handed down sentences ranging between two years, one month to three years, one month.
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Referring to 2019 as “the year when the Pearl of the Orient lost its luster,” Chan said that the defendants had “responded to provocation” from around 100 men in white, about a dozen of whom have since been jailed for “rioting” and “conspiring to wound with intent.”
Chan said Lam hadn’t tried to calm people down, but had rather added “fuel to the flames” by providing a gathering point for people trying to resist the attacks.
The six other defendants -- Yu Ka Ho, Jason Chan, Yip Kam Sing, Kwong Ho Lam, Wan Chung Ming and Marco Yeung -- were sentenced to between 25-31 months.
They had tried to form a defensive line against the attackers, using fire extinguishers and water bottles, and pleaded self-defense during their trial.
But Chan said their actions were “unlawful assembly” and “breach of the peace,” saying that some of them had yelled at the attackers in white to come and fight them, as well as throwing objects at them.
“It is clear that at the time in question ... the defendants became the rioters,” he told the sentencing hearing.
During the attack--carried out by dozens of unidentified thugs in white T-shirts carrying wooden and metal poles--police were inundated with emergency calls, but didn’t move in until 39 minutes after it began.
In a recent book about the protests, former Washington Post Hong Kong correspondent Shibani Mahtani and The Atlantic writer Timothy McLaughlin wrote that the Hong Kong authorities knew about the attacks in advance.
Members of Hong Kong’s criminal underworld “triad” organizations had been discussing the planned attack for days on a WhatsApp group that was being monitored by a detective sergeant from the Organized Crime and Triad Bureau, the book said.
The weeks and months after the incident saw a massive wave of public anger at the police, who were later seen as legitimate targets for doxxing and even violent attacks.
But instead of investigating, then Chief Executive Carrie Lam rejected any allegations of collusion, and later quashed a full report from the city’s police supervisory body on the handling of the protests.
The ruling Chinese Communist Party insists that the 2019 protests were an attempt by "hostile foreign forces" to foment an uprising against the government in Hong Kong.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Eugene Whong.