HONG KONG — A Hong Kong judge has sentenced seven men to prison
for their roles in a 2019 mob attack on unarmed people in a subway station,
which shocked the city and injured dozens, including pro-democracy protesters.
اضافة اعلان
The defendants were given sentences Thursday ranging from 3 1/2
to seven years. Their trial was the first in connection with the July 21, 2019,
attack in the town of
Yuen Long, one of the most contentious episodes of the
protests that year.
More than 100 men, wearing white T-shirts and wielding sticks
and clubs, stormed the station in Yuen Long, on Hong Kong’s northwestern
outskirts, and assaulted people, including passengers on a subway car. Some of
those attacked were wearing black, a color often associated with the protests,
and were returning from a demonstration.
The protests, which began that June to oppose a bill that would
have allowed extraditions to mainland
China, had by then grown into a movement
that deeply divided the city. Both supporters and opponents had at times
engaged in violence.
But the attack in Yuen Long stood out for its brazenness, as
well as for the apparent lack of accountability in the immediate aftermath.
Police were slow to respond, according to a New York Times reconstruction of
the episode. Once they did arrive on the scene, they seemed to make little
effort to pursue the attackers.
No arrests were made that night, and some police officers were
captured on camera talking to some of the men in white, even patting them on
the shoulder.
The police have denied any impropriety, although they initially
acknowledged some modest shortcomings in their response. They have also blamed
the protests for spreading their resources thin that night.
At least 45 people were injured in the attack, according to the
city’s hospital authority. Those wounded included Lam Cheuk-ting, who at the
time was an opposition lawmaker, and Gwyneth Ho, a journalist. Both needed
multiple stitches.
The police eventually arrested dozens of suspects, some of whom
had ties to organized crime groups known as triads. But in the following
months, as pressure grew from Beijing to suppress dissent, Hong Kong
authorities began depicting the incident as a two-sided clash, not an
unprovoked attack. Police arrested Lam in August and accused him of rioting.
In his ruling Thursday, the judge, Eddie Yip, rejected that
version of events.
“They used canes and sticks to beat innocent citizens,” he wrote
of the defendants, citing witness testimony and video footage. “People who were
trapped in the train carriage didn’t dare try to get past the people in white,
who were viciously surrounding the train door holding sticks or canes or
throwing objects.”
Yip said that the defendants, who ranged in age from 41 to 63,
had ganged up with other men in white to beat people dressed in black, and that
one of them, Tang Wai-sum, had appeared to be a leader, at times giving
directions. They also “abused the national flag,” the judge said, noting that
some had tied miniature versions of the Chinese flag to their sticks.
He added: “This indiscriminate collective mob justice has caused
great panic among the public. The court must impose a deterrent sentence on the
perpetrators.”
Yip also wrote that it could be “clearly seen” in videos that
Lam, the lawmaker, had been comforting people in the station and telling them
that the police had been called — not provoking violence, as defendants had
claimed.
Lam is currently in jail, accused by authorities of endangering
national security by running in an unofficial primary election for the
pro-democracy camp. Many lawmakers and pro-democracy activists have been
arrested since Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law on the city
last year, effectively quashing the protests.
The heaviest sentence, of seven years, that Yip handed down
Thursday went to Tang, 62. Several of his co-defendants had served jail time
after being convicted of extortion, robbery, money laundering or belonging to a
triad gang. One other man who had been charged with the seven defendants was
acquitted by Yip last month.
In a news conference after the sentencing Thursday, Tang’s wife,
who did not give her name, said her husband was a “small, ordinary villager,
protecting his home.” Alex Yeung, a prominent pro-China YouTube commentator,
called on national security officials in
Hong Kong to investigate Yip.
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