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(LR) Chung Yiu-wa, Cheung Sau-yin, Lee Wing-tat, Chu Yiu-ming, Benny Tai, Chan Kin-man, Chan Tanya, Shiu Ka-chun and Raphael Wong, two Democratic activists posing in Hong court Kong, China November 19, 2018. REUTERS / Bobby YipReuters
HONG KONG (Reuters) – Three leaders of the 2014 Occupy Civil Disobedience Movement in Hong Kong have pleaded not guilty to public nuisance charges in a crowded court in China's controlled city on Monday, where more than 100 protesters are mobilized to support activists.
Law professor Benny Tai, 54, sociology professor Chan Kin-man, 59, and retired minister, Chu Yiu-ming, 74, face three charges of conspiracy in order to commit a public nuisance, incitement to commit a public nuisance and incitement to incite to a public nuisance.
Each charge is punishable by up to seven years' imprisonment. Six other people are also charged in a case that comes as the civil liberties of the financial center come under increasing pressure.
Supporters applauded and applauded when democracy activists entered the packed hall, with Tai, Chan and Chu wearing black jackets.
Another defendant, Raphael Wong, said while pleading not guilty: "I want universal suffrage".
The nine members were provocative in court as they decried what some called a "political persecution" for what was conceived as a peaceful campaign of civil disobedience.
The demonstrators waved yellow umbrellas, symbol of the pro-democracy movement, and raised their fists in front of the audience chanting: "I want universal suffrage".
Another protester held an umbrella with the words: "Power to the People".
In 2013, Tai, Chan and Chu began promulgating and planning a non-violent civil disobedience campaign to occupy the streets of the city's central business district if China did not allow a truly democratic vote for its next chef.
The "Occupy" campaign began in September 2014 and has become an integral part of the biggest populist challenge of Chinese Communist Party leaders since the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing in 1989.
Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Hong Kong to occupy the main roads continuously and continuously for nearly three months.
Among the six other defendants are Lee Wing-tat, a former Democratic Party member, Democratic legislator Tanya Chan, legislator Shiu Ka-chun and student leaders Tommy Cheung and Eason Chung.
The trial should last about 20 days.
The case could have repercussions on hundreds of other protesters who have not yet been charged.
Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997 according to a formula "one country, two systems", with the guarantee of a high degree of autonomy and private freedoms of Chinese citizenship, including the freedom to speech and the right to protest.
However, critics including foreign governments, business groups and activists say the guarantee is getting weaker.
The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission warned in a report to Congress last week that China had "intensified its interference" with Hong Kong and "closed the political space for that democracy activists can express their dissatisfaction ".
Authorities have banned a political party advocating for the independence of Hong Kong, banned democracy activists from participating in local elections and banned six opposition legislators from sitting in the legislature.
A Financial Times reporter, Victor Mallet, was expelled from the city last week after helping to house a pro-independence activist at the Foreign Correspondents' Club, in which critics described an attack on freedom of speech. # 39; s expression.
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam has repeatedly pointed out that Hong Kong respects the media and other freedoms, but has so far refused to explain Mallet's de facto deportation.
(This story corrects to say that Wong pleaded not guilty to paragraph five)
(Report by James Pomfret, edited by Paul Tait)
Copyright 2018 Thomson Reuters.
