WorldHONG KONG (Reuters) - A Hong Kong court on Monday sentenced two former lawmakers to four weeks in jail for unlawful assembly inside the legislature while they were still lawmakers, further sapping the energy of political activists in the Chinese-ruled territory. Magistrate Wong Sze-lai said during sentencing at the Kowloon City Magistrates’ Courts that their actions had “directly damaged the legislature’s integrity,” local broadcaster RTHK reported. Former UK foreign secretary, Malcolm Rifkind, called the prison sentence “deeply disturbing,” according to a press release by the London-based NGO Hong Kong Watch. It also cited crossbench peer David Alton calling the sentence “a major over-reaction.”“Imagine if a Member of Parliament were sent to jail for staging a protest inside Parliament,” he said. During the pro-democracy “Umbrella Movement” protests in 2014, tens of thousands of demonstrators occupied major highways for over two months demanding full democracy.

Source: Sunday Times June 04, 2018 08:15 UTC