Youngspiration pair handed four-week prison sentence for storming Legco meeting

Baggio Leung (L) and Yau Wai-ching outside High Court after losing an appeal against their disqualification from LegCo on November 30, 2016. File photo: Bobby Yip, Reuters
Baggio Leung (L) and Yau Wai-ching outside High Court after losing an appeal against their disqualification from LegCo on November 30, 2016. File photo: Bobby Yip, Reuters

A Hong Kong court today sentenced two ousted pro-independence lawmakers and their former assistants to a month in prison for storming a Legco meeting two years ago.

Sixtus ‘Baggio’ Leung, 31, and 27-year-old Yau Wai-ching, who were disqualified as lawmakers for improper oath taking, had “damaged the legislature’s integrity” with their “premeditated” actions in November 2016, the magistrate said, according to HK01.

The pair from Youngspiration —  a localist political party founded by Leung in 2015 that advocated independence from China — were convicted last month of “unlawful assembly” for trying to force their way into a meeting to retake their oaths of office.

Three of their political assistants were convicted of the same charge and also received a four-week sentence, with magistrate Wong Sze-lai saying the defendants showed no remorse.

After the terms were read out, the group reportedly yelled “shame”, according to Apple Daily.

The group was bailed pending appeal. However Yau, and two of her co-accused, told the court they wouldn’t appeal, throwing their present status into confusion, RTHK reported.

At the time they stormed the legislative council meeting, the duo had been barred from the main chamber pending a court decision over their disqualification from parliament.

They ran into the chamber, and after security bundled them out, they and their supporters tried to push their way into a committee room to which the disrupted session had been moved.

In the ensuing chaos, they clashed again with security, with at least three members of legco’s security staff taken to hospital and police called in.

Leung and Yau were the first of six lawmakers disqualified for improper oath taking.

They deliberately misread their oaths of office, inserted expletives and draped themselves in “Hong Kong is not China” flags.

A later ruling by Beijing barred them from re-taking the oaths and was also used to disqualify four other lawmakers whose official pledges were deemed improper for various reasons.

With AFP.



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