Hong Kong opposition lawmaker granted bail after being charged with rioting over Yuen Long railway station attack

A Hong Kong opposition lawmaker was granted bail along with six co-defendants on Thursday after being charged in court over the Yuen Long railway station mob attack last year, a day after police said the escalation of violence was the result of two sides provoking each other.

Shortly after approving bail for legislator Lam Cheuk-ting, West Kowloon Court also released his Democratic Party colleague Ted Hui Chi-fung and two others on bail. Prosecutors had charged Hui and the pair over a separate rally in Tuen Mun.

Lam and Hui appeared on the ground floor of the court building after spending 36 hours in detention, as more than 100 supporters, dressed in black to condemn the arrests, cheered and chanted: "Shame on political prosecution."

Lam, a strong critic of police's slow reaction during the Yuen Long mob attack of July 21 in which he also suffered injuries, continued to lash out at authorities, including the city's leader, police commissioner and secretary for justice.

"Not only did they not go after the perpetrators behind July 21 ... Instead, they came to arrest me and my friends," he claimed, following his release.

A police officer leads a woman from mainland China out of Tuen Mun Park during a protest organised by local residents last year. Photo: Felix Wong alt=A police officer leads a woman from mainland China out of Tuen Mun Park during a protest organised by local residents last year. Photo: Felix Wong

Lam was among a group of 13 arrested by police for the incident in which a group of white-clad men with steel rods and rattan canes attacked passengers and anti-government protesters at Yuen Long MTR station.

Prosecutors charged seven of them with rioting on Thursday.

The incident was one of the most controversial episodes amid months of civil unrest, sparked in June last year by the now-withdrawn extradition bill. Opposition lawmakers had questioned police absence that night, with the force saying it was stretched dealing with a protest in the heart of the city.

After Wednesday's arrests, police offered a different version of events, dismissing a year-long depiction of the incident as an "indiscriminate attack" on anti-government protesters and commuters, saying it was a clash between two sides.

On Thursday Principal Magistrate Peter Law Tak-chuen granted the defendants bail but required them to report to police regularly, reside at a reported address and hand over their travel documents. The accused were not required to make a plea at this stage, as the magistrate adjourned the case for police to conduct further investigations and seek legal advice.

While the riot case was adjourned to October 12, the other one involving the Tuen Mun rally will be heard again on November 6.

During the hearing on Thursday, Anthony Chau Tin-hang, senior assistant director of public prosecutions, also revealed that they believed at least 20 people connected with the July 21 incident were still at large.

The six men released on bail with Lam were identified as cook Kwong Ho-lam, 26, electrical technician Wan Chung-ming, 48, social worker Yip Kam-sing, 31, customer service officer Yu Ka-ho, 35, Marco Yeung Long, 26, unemployed, and Jason Chan Wing-hei, 37, who did not provide his occupation.

Before Wednesday's swoop, police have arrested 44 people, with eight charged. Five of them were granted bail.

Lam also faced a count of being involved in an act intended to pervert the course of justice, alongside Hui, 38, and cook Ronnie Tsang Chun-hei, 28, outside Tuen Mun Police Station on July 6 over another rally.

Prosecutors said the trio had incited, induced or instructed a man - identified only as X - to delete his mobile phone's digital content that showed the faces of protesters who might have broken the law on or before July 6 last year.

For the same case, Hui and social worker Aggie Chung Hoi-yin, 39, faced two additional counts of obtaining access to a computer with dishonest intent and criminal damage. They were accused of having accessed X's Redmi note 6 and destroying video clips of the protest outside the Legislative Council on July 1, 2019 that were stored in the device.

Tsang alone was charged with a final count of unlawful assembly, accused of gathering with unknown persons outside the same police station on July 6.

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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