38 2GM Thursday December 3 2020 | the times
Wo r l d
Three of Hong Kong’s most prominent
young democracy leaders have been
sentenced to months in prison for orga-
nising a peaceful demonstration, in the
latest blow to the territory’s protest
movement.
Joshua Wong, 24, Hong Kong’s best-
known activist, received a 13-and-a-
half-month sentence after pleading
guilty to organising and “inciting” an
“unauthorised assembly” on June 21
last year, when a raucous but non-vio-
lent demonstration took place in which
thousands of protesters blocked off a
police headquarters, threw eggs at the
building and defaced it with graffiti.
Mr Wong’s close friends and political
comrades Agnes Chow, 23, and Ivan
Lam, 26, were sentenced to ten months
and seven months respectively for their
part in the same demonstration. The
announcement of the sentences was
met with tears from their supporters in
the courtroom and denunciation by
human rights groups and foreign gov-
ernments, including Britain.
“It’s not the end of the fight,” Mr
Wong said in statement issued through
his lawyers and posted on Twitter.
“Ahead of us is another challenging
battleground. We’re now joining the
battle in prison along with many brave
protesters, less visible yet essential in
the fight for democracy and freedom.”
As he was led out of court, he called
out: “The days ahead will be tough but
we will hang in there.”
The imprisonment of the three activ-
ists, all former members of the now
dissolved political party Demosisto,
was the latest blow to the democracy
movement in Hong Kong which
brought a million or more people on to
the streets last year in the biggest ex-
pression of opposition to Beijing’s com-
munist government on Chinese soil.
The Hong Kong authorities have
banned mass gatherings because of the
coronavirus pandemic, and China has
moved aggressively to assert its control
over the territory in a way that many
foreign governments insist is a viola-
tion of its promises of autonomy
following the handover of the former
colony from Britain to China in 1997.
In April the Hong Kong authorities
arrested and charged 15 prominent op-
position figures, including the “father
of Hong Kong democracy”, Martin Lee,
82, who was later released. In June
Beijing imposed a draconian national
security law, which threatens heavy
sentences for a range of vaguely
defined offences.
Last month a ruling from Beijing
prompted the exclusion from the terri-President Trump is being urged by his
allies to use his powers of pardon for
himself and family members to block a
“witch-hunt” by the Democrats once
he leaves office.
There is a long tradition of US presi-
dents issuing a batch of pardons at the
end of their tenure. Sean Hannity, a Fox
News presenter, and Matt Gaetz, a
Florida congressman, are pressing him
publicly to follow suit.
Mr Trump, 74, has tweeted about a
potential self-pardon, although legal
experts say he would have to list specific
crimes, and doubt whether he could
place himself above the law indefinitely.
He has taken advice on pre-emptive
pardons for his three eldest children
and son-in-law Jared Kushner, accord-
More battles ahead,
says Wong as he is
jailed over protests
tory’s parliament, the Legislative
Council, of four pro-democracy MPs,
provoking the resignation of the rest.
“As three Hong Kong activists begin
prison sentences, I urge the Hong Kong
and Beijing authorities to bring an end
to their campaign to stifle opposition,”
Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary,
said yesterday. “Prosecution decisions
must be fair and impartial, and the
rights and freedoms of people in Hong
Kong must be upheld.”
There was no immediate reaction
from the Hong Kong or Chinese gov-
ernments.
Mr Wong became politically active at
the age of 13 and founded his first activ-
ist group the following year. At 17 he was
arrested for the first time.
Over the past two years he has been
dogged by criminal complaints for his
role in the 2014 “Umbrella” movement,
the last big protests in the territory. He
was released from prison in June last
year halfway through a two-month
sentence for contempt of court.
In 2018 a group of US senators nomi-
nated him for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Jonathan Man, a lawyer for Mr
Wong, said the three had expected
shorter sentences because they were
not accused of violent crimes.
“This is shocking,” he said, adding
that Ms Chow intended to appeal and
that the two men were considering
their position.
Ms Chow faces a separate charge
under the national security law, under
whose terms detainees can, in certain
circumstances, be sent to mainland
China for prosecution.
Many of their supporters fear that
further charges will be brought to bear
against the activists in order to keep
them in prison for a longer period.Joshua Wong, right, and Ivan Lam are
escorted to prison after the hearingC
hina has
started
drilling on
the moon’s
surface and
collecting rocks and
soil, the first time in44 years that any
country has done so
(Louise Watt writes).
The Chang’e-5
probe is expected to
work for about two
days in an area in theOcean of Storms
volcanic plain, on the
near side of the moon,
collecting up to 2kg of
samples by the middle
of the month. The
rocks being targeted
are thought to be
billions of years
younger than samples
collected from other
parts of the moon by
American and Soviet
Union missions in the
1960s and 1970s, andChina drills into
moon for rocks
Hong Kong
Richard Lloyd Parry Asia Editor
Trump urged to protect his family with pardons
United States
David Charter Washington
ing to The New York Times and NBC
News. They said that Rudy Giuliani,
his personal lawyer, was also under
consideration for a pardon,
although for what, exactly, was
not clear.
Last night Mr Trump posted
a 46-minute speech on Face-
book in which he vowed to
continue his campaign to
overturn the election.
He listed numerous alle-
gations of fraud in swing
states and highlighted
“massive dumps” of votes
mainly for Joe Biden as
large metropolitan
areas reported postal
votes. He repeated
familiar claims that Re-
publican count watch-
ers were denied accessand accused Democrats of using the
pandemic as a “pretext” to increase
postal voting “with virtually no
safeguards”.
The president has the ability to
pardon federal crimes under the
US constitution. This has been
used presumptively, most
notoriously when Gerald
Ford issued a full pardon
for his predecessor,
Richard Nixon, in 1974.
However, no president
has tried to pardon him-
self, meaning the issue
has not been tested in
court.
“The president, outthe door, needs to pardon his whole
family and himself,” Mr Hannity said
on his radio show. “I assume that the
power of the pardon is absolute, and
that he should be able to pardon any-
body that he wants.”
On his TV programme Mr Hannity
referred to an article in The New York
Times by Andrew Weissmann, a prose-
cutor in Robert Mueller’s inquiry into
Russian election interference, which
called for Mr Trump to be investigated
for “potential federal crimes”. Mr Han-
nity said: “They want this witch-hunt to
go on in perpetuity. They’re so full of
rage and insanity.”
Mr Trump retweeted a post from Mr
Gaetz last month urging him to pardon
himself. In June 2018 the president also
tweeted: “As has been stated by numer-
ous legal scholars, I have the absolute
right to PARDON myself, but whywould I do that when I have done noth-
ing wrong?”
Last week he pardoned Michael
Flynn, his former national security
adviser, who retracted a guilty plea of
lying to the FBI but was still being con-
sidered for prosecution. Mr Flynn, 61,
claimed that he was set up. In July Mr
Trump commuted the jail sentence of
Roger Stone, a friend and adviser con-
victed, among other things, of lying to
Congress.
Ben Ginsberg, a lawyer who has
represented the Republican Party, told
CNN: “There is nothing to stop a presi-
dent of the United States from pardon-
ing whoever he wants to with the poss-
ible exception of himself but it is usual
in the pardon document itself to spell
out what the person is being pardoned
from. You are in fact saying there is
something I need to be pardoned from.”Mr Trump could
offer a pardon to his
daughter Ivanka