Aljazeera
Hong Kong – Catastrophic, dire, devastating.
Just some of the words democracy supporters used to describe this year in a poll on Hong Kong’s struggle to safeguard its autonomy.
James Andrew Rice, human rights advocate and philosophy professor at Lingnan University, said a number of his students took part in the 2014 Occupy, or Umbrella, Movement that defined Hong Kong’s fight for democracy.
It never occurred to him they could end up behind bars.
“I found myself writing letters to students in prison,” he told Al Jazeera.
“It’s a shocking thing for me as an educator in Hong Kong, students imprisoned for nothing more than expressing a desire of democracy,” he said.
In 2016, the three student leaders who led the 79-day pro-democracy protests of 2014 – Nathan Law, Joshua Wong and Alex Chow – were tried and sentenced to community service for storming government buildings and inciting others to take part in unlawful assembly.
They completed their non-custodial sentences but the government, in July 2017, called for harsher punishment.
On August 27 they went back to court. All three were given prison sentences.
Joshua Wong, 20, was sent to a maximum security facility.