A Hong Kong man was sentenced to three weeks in jail Wednesday for assaulting a police officer.
Except, well, he didn’t quite do that. His (hardly heinous) crime involved sticking a protest poster on the back of a plainclothes cop.
The 25-year-old property agent, surnamed Ho, was taking part in a demonstration in Harbor City, a Tsim Sha Tsui mall, on Christmas Eve last year. According to his defence, he was trying out a “new method” of protest, which entails sticking posters on the backs of demonstrators.
Others around him supported the poster-sticking, he claimed, but unbeknownst to him, one of his “targets” was an undercover police officer who had infiltrated the protest crowd.
Ho said he would not have stuck the poster on his back if he had known he was an officer, and he did not expect that an undercover cop would be present at a peaceful protest. He also said defended the act and said he used “just enough strength” to press down a piece of double-sided tape.
But the Kowloon City Magistrates’ Courts ruled that the officer in question stood out as he was “evidently older” and did not chant any slogans.
The court added the act of sticking the poster on the officer’s back was “extremely insulting” and “posed a challenge to authorities’ law enforcement.”
Around 9,000 people have been arrested in relation to the anti-extradition protests that began last summer, most of them for participating in an unlawful assembly, assaulting a police officer and possession of illegal weapons. Hundreds also face charges of rioting, an offence punishable by 10 years’ imprisonment.
Since Beijing’s national security legislation was enforced in Hong Kong, ten people have been arrested on suspicion of breaching the sweeping law.
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