CHRIS.LAU@SCMP.COM
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 16 December, 2015, 4:27pm
UPDATED : Wednesday, 16 December, 2015, 4:27pm
Ivan Lam (right) at a press conference on national education in 2012. Photo:: K. Y. Cheng
A former spokesman of student activist group Scholarism resorted to radical means to clash with the police at a forum held by Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying two years ago after representatives of the government failed to accept its letter as promised, a court heard today.
Former spokesman Ivan Lam Long-yin, 21, pleaded guilty at Sha Tin Court to two counts of taking part in an illegal assembly outside Sha Tin Government Secondary School, where Leung was holding a district forum on November 24 , 2013. Another Scholarism member, Li Chung-chak, 18, also admitted three counts of the same charge committed on the same occasion.
Lam’s barrister, Annie Leung Wai-man, revealed in mitigation that on the day, his client and fellow protesters had reached an agreement with the police and representatives from the government that the administration would accept the letter.
The protesters were there to demand civil nomination for the chief executive election, she said, but the agreement somehow fell through.
“They might have used alternative, radical means to express their demand,” she explained.
She said Lam, a year two student at the Hong Kong Art School, had pledged to use milder means from now on.
The court heard that on the day, Lam and Li repeatedly charged a police cordon line and moved barricades, despite police warnings. Lam also gave orders to others to mount a charge.
Magistrate Ivy Chui Yee-mei said the court respected the duo’s right to demonstrate and express their opinion, “but there is a bottom line legally”. She said when their acts disrupted the public, the court had a duty to stop them.
She adjourned sentencing until January 7 and ordered a community service report on the defendants.
Outside court, Lam said he pleaded guilty because the matter had dragged on for so long, which had become disadvantageous to him.
He said his guilty plea did not mean the prosecution, brought by the police and the Department of Justice, was not politically motivated.
He was supported by Scholarism convenor Joshua Wong Chi-fung and League of Social Democrats vice-president Raphael Wong Ho-ming.
More than a dozen police officers were stationed outside the court even though there were few supporters.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1891860/hong-kong-government-broke-promise-according-former
