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A Hong Kong court handed 12-months of sentence to a university graduate who was present in Tsuen Wan police clashes during the 2019 protest movement.
Yau Wang-tat has been sentenced under the charges of 'illegal assembly', Radio Free Asia reported. After being sentenced, Yau called on people not to fear the "great wall" of the Chinese Communist Party's political control over the daily lives of Hongkongers. "Just flatten it; it won't be enough to keep you from freedom," he said in a social media post. "I can still feel you all watching me, and that feeling will carry me forwards, my back looking back at the past," he added in the post. Yau was arrested while trying to help teenager Tsang Chi-kin after he was shot with a live round by a policeman in Tsuen Wan on October 1, 2019. Meanwhile, Yau has also struggled to complete his degree in physics amid the pressure of the court case, but was ultimately successful, his lawyer informed. In 2019, more than a million Hongkongers held a mass protest that started with widespread opposition to plans to allow extradition to mainland China, and broadened into calls for full democracy and official accountability, as well as protests over unprecedented police violence, Radio Free Asia reported. Last year, Beijing imposed a national security law on June 30 as a response to these anti-government protests that roiled the city. The law criminalises any act of secession (breaking away from China), subversion (undermining the power or authority of the central government), terrorism and collusion with foreign forces, with punishments of up to life in prison. (ANI)
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