Hong Kong’s Jimmy Lai, 6 ex-lawmakers lose appeal against banned 2019 protest convictions

The appeal centred on the seven’s roles in the mass demonstration that organisers was a “water flow assembly” at Victoria Park in Causeway Bay on August 18, 2019.

They were all convicted in 2021 of organising and taking part in the banned march.

A District Court judge imposed jail sentences of eight to 18 months on Lai, the founder of the now-closed Apple Daily newspaper, and three former opposition lawmakers – Lee Cheuk-yan, “Long Hair” Leung Kwok-hung and Cyd Ho Sau-lan.

Martin Lee and ex-legislators Albert Ho Chun-yan and Margaret Ng Ngoi-yee were given suspended jail sentences.

The Court of Appeal reduced the sentences of Lai, Lee Cheuk-yan, Leung Kwok-hung and Cyd Ho after it quashed the organising charges, but they had completed their sentences by the time the verdict was delivered last year.

The top court earlier rejected a request by some of the appellants for a review of its landmark decision in 2005, which implicitly accepted the legality of unauthorised assembly offences.

A prosecution request to reinstate the conviction of the seven for organisation of the march was also refused by appeal court judges.