{"id":39111,"date":"2019-04-24T05:22:32","date_gmt":"2019-04-24T05:22:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=39111"},"modified":"2019-04-24T05:22:32","modified_gmt":"2019-04-24T05:22:32","slug":"hong-kongs-occupy-central-activists-handed-down-prison-terms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=39111","title":{"rendered":"Hong Kong&#8217;s &#8216;Occupy Central&#8217; activists handed down prison terms"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"body-200771816342556199\" readability=\"96.0755616065\">\n<p class=\"speakable\">A court in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/topics\/country\/hong-kong.html\">Hong Kong<\/a> has handed down prison sentences of up to 16 months to eight leaders of massive 2014 pro-democracy protests.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">Nine leaders of the city&#8217;s &#8220;Occupy Central&#8221; protests that paralysed parts of the former British colony for 79 days in late 2014 were\u00a0convicted last month of public nuisance offences.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">Another defendant, Tanya Chan, had her sentencing postponed because of the need to undergo surgery.<\/p>\n<p>Wednesday&#8217;s decision follows a closely watched trial lasting almost a month and comes at a time when Hong Kong&#8217;s freedoms and autonomy have come under increasing strain from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/topics\/country\/China.html\">China<\/a>&#8216;s Communist Party leaders, stoking concern from foreign governments, rights groups and businesspeople.<\/p>\n<p><span>The 2014 Occupy Central demonstrations, which pushed for genuine, full democracy in Hong Kong,\u00a0blocked roads in three important districts &#8211; Admiralty, Causeway Bay and Mong Kok &#8211; and drew more than a million people over nearly three months, organisers estimated.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Nine defendants, including law professor Benny Tai, 54, retired sociologist Chan Kin-man, 60, and retired pastor Chu Yiu-ming, 75, were found guilty of at least one public nuisance charge each over their roles in planning and mobilising supporters during the protest.<\/p>\n<p>All nine pleaded not guilty and argued the &#8220;umbrella&#8221; movement was intended as peaceful, non-violent civil disobedience, serving no motive other than to benefit society and make positive democratic progress.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>More to follow<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A court in Hong Kong has handed down prison sentences of up to 16 months to eight leaders of massive 2014 pro-democracy protests. Nine leaders of the city&#8217;s &#8220;Occupy Central&#8221; protests that paralysed parts of the former British colony for 79 days in late 2014 were\u00a0convicted last month of public nuisance offences. Another defendant, Tanya&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":39112,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}