Hong Kong student sentenced to more than 2 years in jail for rioting on night of Tiananmen Square vigil
- Tsang King-lun, 22, pleads guilty to rioting in Mong Kok on June 4 last year and is imprisoned for 28 months
- He hurled a traffic cone at an officer during a stand-off involving police and a group of 50 protesters
Tsang King-lun pleaded guilty at the District Court on Wednesday to rioting in Mong Kok on the night of June 4, 2020, when the 22-year-old was among a group of about 50 protesters involved in a stand-off with police on Argyle Street.
People had earlier gathered peacefully outside Langham Place shopping centre to hold candles or wave flashlights to mark the crackdown anniversary.
The court heard that tensions started rising at the scene from about 9pm, as those who gathered for the impromptu vigil dispersed.
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Tsang, a student at the Hong Kong Maritime Service Training Institute, was seen hurling a traffic cone at a police officer during the disturbance, apparently trying to prevent the officer from apprehending a protester. Tsang was immediately subdued and arrested.
Defence counsel Fiona Nam Hoi-yan revealed in mitigation that Tsang’s attention deficit hyperactivity disorder left him easily provoked. The student was initially a passer-by, but lost his sense of control and joined the disturbance after he was pepper-sprayed by mistake, the lawyer added.
Passing sentence, judge Frankie Yiu Fun-che said the case’s severity was reflected in protesters’ attempts to paralyse traffic and engage in violence against police officers, but agreed that Tsang’s involvement was neither premeditated nor did he assume a leading role in the riot.
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The judge set a starting point of 3½ years in jail, reducing it by a third for Tsang’s guilty plea, for a total term of 28 months.
Prosecutors decided not to pursue a separate count of assaulting a police officer given the guilty plea.
Police had warned they would enforce social-distancing rules limiting groups to a maximum of eight people each.
