Charges dropped against eight people arrested at Hong Kong anti-parallel trade protest
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 09 April, 2015, 2:02pm
UPDATED : Thursday, 09 April, 2015, 6:35pm
Chris Lau [email protected]
(From left) Chan Yau-tak, Chan Ka-him, Lam Ho-hin and Richard Suen Lap-fung walk free from Tuen Mun Court. Photo: Chris Lau
Six men and two women arrested during an anti-parallel goods trade protest in Tuen Mun two months ago walked free from Tuen Mun Court today after prosecutors dropped the charges against them.
The eight defendants were brought to the same court on February 11, charged with taking part in an illegal assembly.
It was originally alleged that Chan Ka-him, 23, Fok Wai-keung, 33, Sin Wai-kee, 28, Fu Nok-yiu, 18, Lam Ho-hin, 23, Chan Yau-tak, 29, Alex Tsang Yee-hung, 22, and Richard Suen Lap-fung, 36, took part in an illegal gathering outside the Saint Honore Cake Shop at the south wing of The Trend Plaza on February 8.
But the prosecutor in charge of the case told the court: “After further enquiries, the prosecution decided to withdraw the charge.”
Outside court, some defendants immediately voiced criticism of their arrests, accusing police of pressing charges without justifiable cause.
WATCH: Mother and daughter confronted by Hong Kong anti-parallel trading protesters
“I am a Tuen Mun resident and the shopping mall was not cordoned off at the time. It makes sense if I appeared at the mall at the time,” Chan Yau-tak said, stressing that police should first gather evidence before deciding whether to lay charges.
He accused police of using delaying tactics, which made his life inconvenient as he was barred from entering the mall as a bail condition.
Suen, another acquitted defendant, said not only did the case waste time, but it cost taxpayers’ money.
“As an ordinary citizen, we go to a shopping mall to shop and dine. But the police officers ... surrounded us and used pepper spray on us,” he said. “It was outrageous.”
Although reluctant to answer whether he was there for the anti-parallel goods trade protest, Suen said it was an issue for the government to address.
Two other defendants arrested on the same day, meanwhile, will continue to face trial after pleading not guilty to two other charges.
A 16-year-old girl, charged with obstructing a police officer, would face trial on June 25, while Lee Siu-chiu, 22, a Polytechnic University student, would stand trial for one count of assaulting a police officer on June 22.
On February 8, hundreds of protesters participated in a protest, marching from a central Tuen Mun light rail station to a bus stop where passengers catch buses to Shenzhen. The march was to voice discontent against anti-parallel goods traders.
The incident, followed by a flurry of protests alike in various districts with a strong presence of parallel traders, ended with one police officer and 13 local people suffering minor injuries.
The conflict between protesters and their detractors further heightened last month when a video capturing a protester yelling at a mother and her daughter, mistaken for being mainlanders, went viral on the internet.
