Source: France24<\/p>\n
Joshua Wong, Nathan Law and Alex Chow were\u00a0jailed in August last year<\/a>\u00a0for their role in the 2014 Umbrella Movement mass pro-democracy\u00a0protests<\/a>, after\u00a0Hong Kong<\/a>\u2019s government pushed for harsher sentences.<\/p>\n A lower court had given Wong and Law community service orders and Chow a suspended sentence. But after the government\u2019s intervention they were jailed for between six and eight months by the Court of Appeal.<\/p>\n The government\u2019s move was seen as further evidence of Beijing\u2019s growing influence over the semi-autonomous city, with\u00a0Chinese<\/a>\u00a0authorities particularly riled by the emergence of activists calling for independence for Hong Kong.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Wong and Law\u2019s political party Demosisto wants self-determination for the city.<\/p>\n \u201cNow is the chance for us to be aware how the courts of Hong Kong will recognise, will position, the motivation of civil disobedience,\u201d Wong, 21, told reporters ahead of the hearing at the city\u2019s court of final appeal.<\/p>\n Chilling effect<\/strong><\/p>\n The unlawful assembly charges for which the three were jailed related to their involvement in the storming of a fenced-off government forecourt known as Civic Square in September 2014.<\/p>\n Their arrests sparked wider rallies which exploded two days later when police fired tear gas at the crowds, triggering the Umbrella Movement protests which brought parts of the city to a standstill.<\/p>\n Defence lawyer Robert Pang warned that harsher sentences had a \u201cchilling effect\u201d on young people expressing their views.<\/p>\n \u201cWe must guard against discouraging young, idealistic persons who are doing this not for their personal benefit…from expressing their point of view,\u201d Pang told the court.<\/p>\n Prosecution counsel David Leung argued the role of the court of appeal had been to judge whether the original magistrate had given \u201cproper weight\u201d when assessing the culpability of the trio for the clashes.<\/p>\n Court of final appeal judge, chief justice Geoffrey Ma, warned protesters should not \u201coverstep the mark\u201d, whatever their motivation.<\/p>\n But he questioned whether the original magistrate had \u201cerred in principle\u201d as non-custodial sentences were common for unlawful assembly offences.<\/p>\n The case was adjourned for judgment with a date not set.<\/p>\n The Umbrella Movement called for fully free leadership elections to replace a system where the city\u2019s chief executive is selected by a pro-Beijing committee, but failed to win any concessions.<\/p>\n Since then there have been growing signs that China is increasing its control over Hong Kong.<\/p>\n Hong Kong has been governed under a \u201cone country, two systems\u201d deal since 1997, when Britain handed the territory back to China.<\/p>\n The deal allows citizens\u2019 rights unseen on the mainland, including freedom of speech and a partially directly elected parliament, as well as an independent judiciary.<\/p>\n A number of leading campaigners have been charged in relation to the 2014 protests, while six rebel legislators including Law were disqualified from parliament.<\/p>\n Wong also faces a possible jail sentence Wednesday for obstructing the clearance of a major protest encampment in 2014, a charge to which he pleaded guilty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source: France24 Hong Kong\u2019s leading democracy activists appealed Tuesday against their jail terms in a case seen as a litmus test for the independence of the city\u2019s judiciary, which some fear is under pressure from Beijing. Joshua Wong, Nathan Law and Alex Chow were\u00a0jailed in August last year\u00a0for their role in the 2014 Umbrella Movement mass pro-democracy\u00a0protests, after\u00a0Hong Kong\u2019s government… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1199"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1200,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199\/revisions\/1200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}