A 21-year-old Hong Kong lifeguard, the first anti-government protester to plead guilty to the charge of rioting during last year's unrest, was sentenced to four years jail on Friday for a "direct attack on the rule of law".
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Sin Ka-ho was among thousands who surrounded the Legislative Council on June 12 in a bid to stop legislators giving a second reading to a since-withdrawn bill that would have allowed extraditions to mainland China.
A few dozen protesters, many wearing black and holding a banner reading "Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution of our times" gathered outside the court on Friday, chanting "there's no riot, only tyranny".
The protest at the Legislative Council was the first of many last year that police cleared with tear gas and rubber bullets, angering moderate Hong Kong people in a pivotal moment for the anti-government movement.
Demonstrations turned more confrontational and broadened to demands for democracy in the Chinese-ruled city amid anger at Beijing's perceived meddling with its freedoms.
Sin admitted pushing police barricades and hurling umbrellas and other objects at officers but denied planning the assaults.
The defendant's actions were "a direct attack on the rule of law", District Court Justice Amanda Woodcock said in the sentencing, which is seen as potentially laying down a marker for the nearly 600 protesters who have been charged with rioting, risking up to 10 years in jail.
Sin has been the only one so far to plead guilty, in a symbolic blow for the protest movement, whose demands include amnesty for all those arrested and the government dropping its characterisation of the protests as "riots".
More than 8300 protesters were arrested between June 2019 and mid-May this year. More than 1600 have been prosecuted and 595 face rioting charges.
Australian Associated Press
