The Hong Kong Riot Trials
#9 in the Hong Kong Repression Monitor series
The Hong Kong Repression Monitor series provides overviews of indicators of repression in Hong Kong, based on research and data collected from 2019 to the present. For more information, see this introduction, which also has a full list of entries in the series as they are published.
This article is #9 in the Hong Kong Repression Monitor series.
While I have monitored riot arrests and trials all along, as part of the larger project of tracking all political arrests, trials and imprisonments in Hong Kong, Witness, the independent court-reporting website in Hong Kong, has monitored and documented the riot trials specifically. For that reason, I rely on their data for many of the statistics presented below, and I thank them for their excellent work.
UPDATE: On March 11, 2025, Jackie Chen, a description of whose case can be found below, was convicted of “riot” on August 31, 2019 in Wan Chai. This was her second trial. In her first, she was acquitted along with all seven of her co-defendants. But the government successfully appealed the acquittal. In the meantime, four co-defendants (as well as the original judge) left Hong Kong. The remaining three plead guilty in the re-trial, but Jackie plead not guilty. Her sentencing will be on April 9. With her conviction, in all, 11 social workers have been convicted of “riot” during the 2019 mass protests; one has been acquitted.
Since June 9, 2019, there have been 1,920 political prisoners in Hong Kong. Of those, 660—a little more than one-third—have been convicted of “riot” in relation to the mass protests of 2019. That’s far more than for any other offense: The second-highest number of political prisoners have been convicted of “unlawful assembly”—379. The number of political prisoners who have been convicted of offenses “endangering national security” (ie, offenses under the first national security law of 2020 plus sedition) is 125.
But even though people convicted of riot represent the largest proportion of political prisoners, and riot convictions carry some of the longest prison sentences of any of those that political prisoners have received, this phenomenon of hundreds of imprisonments for riot has gotten relatively little attention.
Why is that? I suspect it’s because lots of observers don’t know quite what to make of it. If you hear that 45 pro-democracy leaders have been convicted of “conspiracy to subvert state power” for taking part in a primary election, that sounds absurd on the face of it, and the “crime” is explicitly political. But “riot”—isn’t rioting bad? isn’t it violent? How can it be justified?
When I put out the political prisoners report in 2022 with Hong Kong Democracy Council, all of us who worked on it were in complete agreement that all protesters sentenced to prison should be considered political prisoners, regardless of the offense. This was based partly on the strong sense of solidarity between all protesters, among all freedom-loving Hong Kongers in 2019. The ethos was strong and simple and clear: We all stick together, no matter what, through thick and then, the so-called “peaceful and rational” (ie, older and more moderate) and the so-called “brave and valiant” (ie, younger and more radical) We’re all in this together, and we’ll stay together to the end, no matter how much the regime does to separate and break us up. That kind of firm, steadfast togetherness, lacking in all division and factionalism, was in fact one of the major accomplishments of the 2019 protests.
I remember when mostly young protesters stormed the Legislative Council building on July 1, 2019. Foreign commentators speculated that it would split the movement: All those peaceful, pro-democracy Hong Kongers couldn’t possibly go along with this, the thinking went. It was a moment when I thought, “They really don’t understand what’s going on.” Of course, it didn’t split the movement; if anything, it helped to consolidate it.
The other reason we decided to categorize all imprisoned protesters as political prisoners was that we saw how the regime was weaponizing the justice system to crack down on political dissidence. The vast majority of political prisoners in Hong Kong have been convicted of crimes which on the face of it are not political, like “riot,” but this is done as part of a major political crackdown and to enforce the government’s narrative of the protests, that they were strictly a “law and order” issue, as opposed to what they really were: a political conflict over how Hong Kong was to be governed, between two irreconcilable visions of the kind of place Hong Kong was to be. If you refuse to face this aspect of the crackdown—the weaponization of the justice system to crush political opponents—then you’re missing a very big part of it. The Communist Party, the Hong Kong government, the police, the prosecutors, the judiciary have all been played major roles in this crackdown that, among other things, has resulted in 1,920 people being imprisoned for their political speech and actions.
But to recognize the 660 people imprisoned for riot as the political prisoners they are is to face the tricky issue of “violence.”
International media covering the protests often resorted to stock phrases, such as “the ‘sometimes violent’ protests” or “the ‘often violent’ protests.”
To begin with, the vast majority of protests and protesters, including all of the largest protests (and there were several of more than one million people), were entirely nonviolent.1
Very few news outlets actually examined what they meant by “sometimes/often violent protests.” Who was violent? Police, protesters, both? Of what did the violence consist? Who or what was the target of the violence? And, a more foundational issue: to what extent and under what circumstances might violent protest be justifiable?
I agree with the proposition that violent protest in a democratic society is rarely if ever justifiable. This is why I believe the storming of the Legislative Council on July 1, 2019 was justifiable whereas the storming of the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 was not: Hong Kong was undemocratic and had for years denied the Hong Kong people the universal suffrage that had been promised to them, whereas the US is not only democratic but the election which had just occurred was free and fair—those who broke into the Capitol were doing so based on a false belief.
But what about under tyranny? Is violence against the tyrant and his allies justifiable? I would have liked news outlets as well as other observers to take such questions seriously rather than just resort to short-hand and vacuous descriptors such as “sometimes/often violent protests.”
Hong Kong people had been protesting entirely nonviolently for their rights for many years, going back to the 500,000 who marched in 2003, up through the Umbrella Movement, and the many many other very large protests in the hundreds of thousands down through the years. It was understandable that people were fed up and frustrated. In 2019, definite “rules of engagement” governed more aggressive protest actions. There was no looting, zero. Almost all violence, such as the throwing of petrol bombs, was directed at police, who after all were the ones who had attacked protesters, almost all of whom were peaceful. In this sense, there was a substantial element of self-defense in protester violence. Almost all destruction of property targeted government buildings or businesses that supported the regime. You may approve or disapprove of these rules of engagement, keeping in mind the context of fighting the tyrant when peaceful means had failed over decades, but my point is that they clearly existed. Protester violence was not indiscriminate or irrational. (There were certainly occasional excesses, above all, attacks on civilians, which were very small in number but, in my view, entirely inexcusable and unjustifiable.)
I suggest that protester violence may in some circumstances be justified as someone who would never hurt a flee. I wonder what I would have done if I lived in a place with military conscription. I simply cannot imagine myself as a soldier. I have advocated and practiced nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience for decades. But in 2019, I was at almost every large protest where “some violence” occurred. I was on the frontlines with the frontliners. Because I believed someone should stand with them, someone should look out for them, I should show I was on their side even if I could not do some of the things they did, I should witness what happened.
For that reason, I identify deeply with the people who were arrested, prosecuted and imprisoned for “riot”—it could have just as well have been myself; I could just as well be in prison now rather than writing this because, after all, as you shall see, a great many were convicted of riot based on little more evidence than that they were there at the scene, as was I.
Probably when most people think of “riot,” they assume it’s a violent crime. But in fact, under Hong Kong law, it isn’t necessarily. Below is the statute regarding “riot” in Hong Kong’s Public Order Ordinance (POO, for short). Note that the key phrase in the definition of “riot” is a “breach of the peace.”
So anyone who is at an unlawful assembly and commits a “breach of the peace” is guilty of “riot.”
The other key phrase in the statute is “take part”: what constitutes “taking part” in a “riot”? On that question has hung the fate of hundreds.
Interestingly, when the Hong Kong government first started charging large numbers of people with “riot” in 2019 and 2020, it was not very successful: out of its first 25 prosecutions, only six people were convicted. This could not stand. CCP-owned media conducted a propaganda campaign intended to intimidate judges. The Hong Kong government appealed to the Court of Appeal, which agreed with it, ruling on March 25, 2021 that while merely being present at a riot does not in itself render a defendant liable, “actively promoting or encouraging” does. In other words, the court was specifying what “taking part” constituted and was essentially saying that one needn’t take any particular aggressive action to be ruled to have “taken part” in the riot. (That appeals court ruling went even further, saying that the principle of “joint enterprise” applied, meaning that even those not present at the “riot” could be convicted of “riot.” The Court of Final Appeal later overturned that part of the judgment but upheld the main part, regarding what constitutes “participation.”)
This ruling opened the floodgates, allowing the regime to turn mass arrests into mass incarceration. Judges learned the new rules fast: convict or else. One judge retired early and moved to the UK in 2021 after an intense campaign against him in the CCP-owned press following his acquittal of 14 people of “riot” and “conspiracy to riot.” Over the two and half years following the appeals court ruling, conveyor-belt justice sent hundreds of “rioters” to prison. Just about any shred of evidence was sufficient for the judge to rule that someone had “actively promoted or encouraged” and thereby “participated” in a riot and therefore was guilty: prosecutors routinely introduced as evidence and judges routinely cited in their verdicts the wearing of black or dark clothes, the possession of protest gear typical at the time to protect from police attack such as helmets and gas masks, the shouting of slogans, and so on. I myself have not been able to go over all of the verdicts to compile a complete record, but all of the evidence that others have compiled shows that no evidence of violent or aggressive acts was presented in the vast majority of “riot” convictions. So, in point of fact, people were being sent to prison for years just for being there, just for being unlucky enough to be among the few the police managed to catch.
The Department of Justice appealed the acquittals of the 14 people by the judge who subsequently retired and emigrated to the UK. The appeals court sided with the DoJ and sent the cases back for retrial. By that point, ten of the 14 had managed to leave Hong Kong. That left four. Of those four, three gave up and plead guilty, leaving just one, Jackie Chen, who was a social worker.
During the protests, social workers played a particular role. They definitely sympathized with the protesters, but they saw themselves apart from them. Their job was to intervene with the police, reminding them of their legal obligations and dissuading them from using force. Some people saw their efforts as futile in the face of ever-increasing police violence, but they were appreciated nonetheless. Jackie was playing this role as a kind of mediator when she was arrested. Anyone who knew anything about the protests knew that charging her with “riot” was completely absurd. The first judge thought so too: technically, she was not even acquitted: the judge threw out the case after the prosecution presented its evidence, ruling that the case was “not established;” that is to say, it wasn’t even strong enough to proceed.
Jackie Chen’s retrial took place in December 2024. The verdict is scheduled for March 11, just a few days away. When it comes, it will have been nearly six years since the incident in question.
Coming back to my point that lots of people have been convicted of “riot” and sentenced to years in prison for little more than having been present at the scene of where police declared a “a breach of the peace” occurred, let’s look at two very large batches of riot defendants rounded up in mass arrests.
Example number one: On November 18, 2019, a total of 213 people were arrested in a mass roundup in Yau Ma Tei, near the police siege of Polytechnic University. One of the most infamous occurrences of the mass protests, the police surrounded PolyU on November 17, trapping the protesters on the campus. It threatened them with arrest for riot if they did not emerge by a certain deadline as well as with lethal force. The next day, protesters turned out in the tens of thousands to attempt to break the police siege (which ended up lasting all the way until November 29). The photo at the top of this post is of some of those arrested in the mass roundup, which took place in the evening of the 18th when the police went on the offensive. Those arrested were the ones the police happened to be able to corner.
Of the 213, 206 were put on trial in 17 different batches. (The seven others had managed to abscond.) Of those 206, 200 were convicted. Out of those 200, Witness found no evidence of involvement in any form of violent or aggressive act was introduced in 195 cases. That’s right: in 97 percent of cases, the defendant had done little more but be there. Thirty-five defendants were found to have possessed items commonly used by protesters such as scissors, ropes, wrenches and laser pens. Ninety-eight defendants had protective gear such as gloves, masks and umbrellas. Fifty-three defendants were found to have been wearing dark or black clothes. Of the five cases in which evidence of violence was introduced, two had involved confrontations with police, and three defendants were found to have possessed petrol bombs and lighters. As a judge in one of those seventeen trials put it, "Although the defendants did not personally commit violent acts resulting in a breach of the peace, individuals who participated in the riot must bear corresponding criminal responsibility for the overall behavior of the rioting group.” In other words, collective responsibility.
Beyond those arrested in that mass roundup in Yau Ma Tei, a huge number of political prisoners resulted from that one single day, November 18. In all, 377 were imprisoned in relation to the police siege of PolyU—nearly 20 percent of the overall number of 1,920 political prisoners—, and 312 of them were convicted of “riot”—the 200 arrested in that mass roundup in Yau Ma Tei, plus 112 others, most of whom were caught while trying to escape the police siege of PolyU.
In most of their cases, the only evidence against them was that they had been on the PolyU campus when the police cordoned it off and had not emerged when the police warned that all who remained would be liable for “riot.”
The following four photos are of the dramatic bridge escapes. These were highly coordinated, with vehicles waiting to whisk away the protesters who managed to descend from the bridges on ropes. Some succeeded. Some got caught. The protesters who got caught were charged with “riot”: those aiding them were charged with “perverting the course of justice.”
The following brief clip is of a so-called “raptor” police officer dragging a protester away from the PolyU campus during a brief incursion the police made onto the campus in the early morning of November 19.
The following video was shot outside of the police cordon. It shows the police taking protesters caught while trying to escape PolyU to an awaiting train carriage which they had commandeered. They were transported to a nearby subway station and taken from there to a nearby police station, where they were charged with riot.
Five of those convicted of “riot” at PolyU were emergency medical providers; that is to say, they were volunteer first-aiders, present to care for the injured, but neither police nor prosecutors nor ultimately judges regarded that as a legitimate excuse. They were among altogether eight emergency medical providers convicted of “riot” during the 2019 mass protests.
Prince Wong Ji-yuet was among those arrested on November 18 and eventually convicted of riot (sentence: 37 months). She was also a defendant in the trial of 47 for taking part in the pro-democracy primary of 2020 (sentence: 53 months). And though young (27), she is, like many Hong Kong young people, already a veteran.
Whenever I thought of her, I recall that she was, along with Joshua Wong, among three teenage members of Scholarism who went on hunger strike near the end of the Umbrella Movement in December 2014.
Her trajectory, from civil disobedient in 2014 to “rioter” in 2019 to primary candidate in 2020 to prison in 2023 tracks the history of the pro-democracy movement over the past decade as well as the extent to which the CCP has destroyed the dreams of the young generations in its quest for complete control of Hong Kong. She’s projected to be released from prison in October 2028.
Example number two: On September 29, 2019, 96 people were rounded up in mass arrests on two roads in Admiralty, Queensway and Harcourt Road, near Hong Kong government headquarters. After the mass arrest outside the PolyU siege discussed above, this was the second-largest riot trial. The 96 defendants were divided into eleven separate trials which ran through October 2023. Out of the 96, 95 were convicted of riot and one absconded—a virtual 100-percent conviction rate. While no evidence of the defendants having committed violent or aggressive acts was presented in 97 percent of the cases of those convicted in the PolyU police siege trials, the percentage was significantly lower in the Admiralty trials, but still a clear majority: in 70 percent of cases no evidence of commission of violent or aggressive acts was introduced, and defendants were convicted based on their presence, the clothes they wore, and their equipment.
My neighbor, a devout Christian and a musician, was among those convicted. He got 50 months in prison because, the judge said, he had actively participated the riot for at least 15 minutes, so “his criminal responsibility is heavier than others.” (That was the longest sentence in his batch of nine, who were sentenced to between 38 and 50 months.) At the sentencing hearing, the judge said “violating the law of righteousness” was only acceptable in “societies that are extremely suppressive and tyrannical,” where there was no other option, and Hong Kong was “not yet at such a stage.” My neighbor is typical of the majority of political prisoners convicted of riot in that he was just an ordinary citizen with no public profile who was out on the streets fighting for a free Hong Kong.
I had happened to be about one-hundred meters away from my neighbor on Queensway at the time of his arrest. I didn’t know he was there; I only found out later that he had been arrested. At first, his pro-bono lawyer was informed by the police that he and the others arrested would be charged with “unlawful assembly” but they were held the 48-hour maximum allowed under law, and during that time, a decision was made to change the charge to “riot” for all of them. I realized at that moment that he was in for years of legal struggles and imprisonment, and also that it could just as well have been me.
Witness reported that in all as of June 7, 2024 a total of 842 people had been charged with “riot” and the trials of 738 had concluded. 655 people were convicted, and 83 were acquitted, for a conviction rate of about 89 percent. Of those convicted, 262 plead guilty and 396 plead not guilty and were convicted after trial.
Since last June, there have been a few more riot trials, but not many: 18 more people have been convicted of riot. Four of those were originally acquitted but the acquittals were overturned on government appeal and they were eventually convicted. So, altogether, as of today, 752 riot trials have concluded and 673 have been convicted. Witness includes all those convicted of riot in its count, regardless of political persuasion. As of June 7, 2024, this included nine of the white-shirted thugs who indiscriminately attacked citizens in Yuen Long on July 27, 2019. Since then, four more have been convicted, for a total of 13 white-shirted thugs convicted of riot. I do not include the thugs in my overall count of political prisoners, which is made up entirely of people imprisoned for advocating and expressing pro-democracy views and/or views oppositional to / critical of the regime. If you deduct the white-shirted thugs from the overall count of those convicted and imprisoned for “riot,” the number is 740 riot trials completed and 660 convicted.
Speaking of the white-shirted thugs, one of the most absurd riot trials, indeed one of the most absurd of the thousands of political trials in Hong Kong, just finished in February, nearly six years after the incident in question. Pro-democracy leader Lam Cheuk-ting and six others were convicted of “riot” in Yuen Long on July 27, 2019, one of the most infamous dates in recent Hong Kong history. That evening, more than one-hundred thugs dressed in white indiscriminately attacked citizens in and around Yuen Long MTR station, apparently under the false impression that protesters were coming to Yuen Long. In spite of numerous calls to the police, the police did not appear. In the absence of the police, some peope attempted to protect their fellow citizens from the attackers by, for example, using the firehoses in the MTR station or shouting or throwing things at them. Seven of them, including Lam, were convicted and sentenced to between 25 and 37 months in prison. The judgment corresponded to the regime’s revised narrative that, rather than white-shirted thugs attacking defenseless citizens, what had really happened that evening was a “fight between two rival gangs.” Up is down, black is white. The fact that the judgment was so closely aligned with the government’s obviously false narrative was seen by many as yet another sign of the extent to which the judiciary had lost its independence and been subordinated to the ruling power.
Among those convicted of riot, six were sentenced to juvenile detention centres and 61 to juvenile training centres. The 593 others were sentenced to prison:
Eight received sentences of less than two years;
117 were sentenced to between two years and two years, eleven months;
205 were sentenced to between three years and three years, eleven months;
205 were sentenced to between four years and four years, eleven months;
51 were sentenced to between five years and five years, eleven months;
Seven were sentenced to more than six years in prison.
That makes for a median sentence of slightly under four years.
Of the seven sentenced to more than six years in prison, four were convicted of “riot” for storming the Legislative Council building on July 1, 2019. Renowned pro-democracy actor, Gregory Wong, was one of them—he got 74 months in prison, just for being there. Three other well-known figures were also convicted for participating in the storming of Legco: former University of Hong Kong student union leader Althea Suen, and pro-democracy leaders and HK47 defendants, Owen Chow and Ventus Lau. Because they plead guilty, they got shorter sentences, albeit still significantly longer than the average riot sentence: Althea, 57 months; Owen, 61 months and 15 days; and Ventus, 54 months and 20 days. As with Gregory Wong, Ventus and Althea were not accused of having done anything violent or destructive; they were convicted simply for being there. Owen admitted he had sprayed slogans on the walls inside Legco, torn up three copies of the Basic Law and helped put up a banner which read, “There are no rioters, only tyranny,” inside the Legco chamber.
In her February 2024 mitigation statement, which was repeatedly interrupted by the judge who believed she was “expressing political opinions,” Althea said she loved Hong Kong and it was natural and obligatory for her to join the protests. She believed any citizen who thinks independently and rationally should stand up when Hong Kong’s values are challenged. “In the eyes of the regime, the real crime is the pursuit of democracy, freedom, and human rights,” she said.
Owen Chow, at his mitigation hearing in March 2024, quoted Martin Luther King, Jr: “Riot is the language of the unheard.” He said storming Legco “was not an impulsive act, but rather a desperate outcry by those who felt that they were left with no other options.” He characterized the break-in as a “direct exercise of political rights” and an act of resistance against a system that continued to suppress public opinion.
Ventus Lau said he went to Legco only because he feared bloodshed and wanted to minimize the casualties, concluding, “If you let me choose 100 more times, I would still choose to enter [Legco].”
Perhaps the last point worth mentioning about the riot trials is just how long they’ve gone on. The first riot conviction occurred on May 4, 2020 over the early protest on June 12, 2019 in which police attacked tens of thousands of mostly peaceful protesters en masse. The most recent was of the seven for Yuen Long; that was on December 12, 2024.
In most cases where people are arrested for “endangering national security” (under the 2020 national security law or for sedition), they are remanded in custody pending trial, and many have waited years in prison before a verdict. All but two have been convicted, so in a way, it’s kind of a perverse advantage to be remanded: you can start serving your time before you’re sentenced.
But in the case of the riot trials, almost all defendants are released on bail pending verdict. Because the trials have gone on so long, these defendants have had their cases hanging over them often for years, and then only once they’re convicted are they taken into custody and begin to serve their time. Many defendants have said they feel as if their life has been put indefinitely on hold and that, mentally, that was the most challenging aspect of the ordeal.
Just to give one example: Marco was 25 when he was arrested on August 26, 2020, a full year after the incident in question, the thug attacks in Yuen Long on July 21, 2019. He was among the seven who tried to defend citizens from the thugs but was being charged with riot. The trial would hang over him for the next 52 months. At the time of his arrest, he had a good job as a flight controller at the airline, Cathay Pacific. But he felt that because of his arrest, that job was untenable. He left, and together with friends opened a bento shop in April 2021. His trial was originally scheduled to start in March 2023. Due to that and his partner emigrating, the shop closed in April 2023. He said that was the beginning of a true downward spiral in his life: "I lost the courage to plan for my future because I didn't know if I would have a future." The start of the trial was postponed to October. "Every postponement was a torment." Marco suffered from emotional instability, worsening eczema and insomnia. After the trial started, two banks terminated his bank accounts. He did odd jobs. As the trial progressed, his confidence eroded. He began mentally preparing for the worst. By the time of the verdict in December 2024, Marco said his life had been suspended for years. The last two years especially were "survival, not living. I have to survive, keep breathing, not let myself die." When he and the others were found guilty, they were taken into custody (except Lam Cheuk-ting, who was already in prison). Before the verdict, Marco, who volunteered at an animal shelter, got a kitten to keep his family company in his absence. In February 2025, Marco was sentenced to 31 months in prison. He didn't shed a tear until his father visited and said, "We'll always be waiting for you on the outside."
Marco’s case may be extreme: his was one of the last riot trials to conclude. But most riot trials finished in 2023 and 2024, years after the mass protests of 2019. So waiting with one’s life on hold has been one of the most common experiences of riot defendants.
This is one of the main reasons so many accused of riot have plead guilty: the conviction rate is so high, they believe correctly that the chances of acquittal are low, and so they just want to speed up the process, get sentenced to prison, and get the whole thing over with as soon as possible.
Essentially, with the riot trials, the government was targeting the younger generations. In doing so, it was not only disrupting the lives of hundreds but also undermining the future of Hong Kong.
Not only are there the hundreds of young political prisoners, but there are the tens of thousands of young people who have emigrated from Hong Kong, in despair about the political situation there, to make their lives elsewhere, not because they deeply desired to emigrate but because they saw no hope, only danger, in their home.
The father of one of the “riot” defendants, when interviewed, said he felt that things had turned out quite ok for most people in his generation, but the people of his son’s generation were living a tragedy.
There are few more fitting symbols of this tragedy than the riot trials.