4 Occupy Central Activists Get Their Charges


Going back four years to the year of 2013, Hong Kong experienced a mostly peaceful protest in which those taking part in it were sitting and blocking a large amount of area. What were they protesting? Well, the online TIME magazine has a very concise explanation of what happened and why.

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Since then what has happened? Several people have been identified and arrested and convicted of “unlawful assembly” and “inciting subversion of state power” among other things. The latest of a series of people being sentenced since the OccupyCentral protest, Cheung Kai-yin, Ma Po-kwan, Wong Lai-wan, and Yeung Ho-wah, were let off lightly.  They will not be spending several years behind bars but instead will be forced to pay HKD10,000 (around 110 Euros) each as a fine as well as having a suspended jail sentence.
Mr Justice Chan gave Ma six months to pay the fine, having considered his “unstable income”. The other three had to settle the fine in three months. Their one-month jail term would be suspended for 12 months.
Their cases trace back to November 26, 2014 when a group of 20 people were arrested for refusing to leave when bailiffs, acting on a court order, cleared the Mong Kok protest site on Nathan Road during the Occupy campaign in protest against Beijing’s restrictive framework on Hong Kong’s political reforms.
The fine while not sounding like a lot of money for those who have it, is a horrific sum of money for those who cannot afford it, which is the vast amount of people in Hong Kong. Most of the local people in Hong Kong make a monthly salary of around HKD15,500, from which they would need to pay rent, their child's tuition fees, food, travel expenses and more, which therefore would make the aforementioned fine crippling for them.

Now going forward from these particular proceedings, it can be expected that these four will be trying to stay out of trouble especially with the government. They also might be having issues finding and keeping a steady job since their records can be seen by possible employers, which could affect not only them but also their potential future partners and children. However, since they have been part of this protest they should be very convinced of what they were protesting for and about and would want to keep spreading the ideas to future generations. How they would do that is for them to know and for us to guess.

The one I feel would have the most influence on the youth would be Mr Cheung, since he works as a community development officer. He would be able to influence people through the events and plans that will be taking place by adding or pushing for certain ideas that he feels would move the community in the direction that he supports and are similar to the ones he supported during Occupy Central.

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