Joshua Wong acquitted: judge tells activist to reflect on his behaviour, drops police obstruction charges
Court says officers were merely inconvenienced, not obstructed in legal sense
A Hong Kong magistrate told Occupy activist Joshua Wong Chi-fung to reflect on his past behaviour while acquitting him and three others of charges of obstructing police yesterday.
The Eastern Court case centred on the burning of a prop of Beijing’s white paper – addressing the extent of Hong Kong’s autonomy – outside the central government’s liaison office in the city’s Western district on June 11, 2014.
Four men were arrested 13 months later, including League of Social Democrats vice-chairman Raphael Wong Ho-ming, 27; radical lawmaker Albert Chan Wai-yip, 61; Demosisto chairman Nathan Law Kwun-chung, 23; and Demosisto secretary general Joshua Wong, 19. All four earlier denied the charges.
Magistrate Lee Siu-ho said the burning prop, measuring one metre by 1.5m, was a danger to those in the narrow and crowded street.
He ruled Raphael Wong and Chan had caused an obstruction when they pushed aside plainclothes sergeant Lai Kin-man, who was trying to douse the fire with a bottle of water. But he accepted it may have been unintentional as the two may not have known Lai was an officer.
Meanwhile, Lee found Joshua Wong had blocked sergeant Ho Kwok-chu and seized Lai’s bottle before dropping it to the ground, but concluded this did not amount to obstruction in the legal sense as the officers concerned were merely inconvenienced in the execution of their duties.
