Chris Lau

The Hong Kong activist attacked with hammers and spanners is a veteran democracy campaigner and openly gay LGBT rights activist. Jimmy Sham, 31, was attacked on Wednesday night for the second time in less than two months, just days before the organization he leads organized another mass anti-government rally.  Sham is the convener of the Civil Human Rights Front, which has organized some of the largest democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong’s history.  Although Sham is not leading the entire anti-government movement, currently in its 19th week, he is seen as a representative voice of the city’s peaceful protesters, colloquially called “peaceniks.”  In August, Sham and a colleague were beaten

A lawyer at French bank BNP Paribas in Hong Kong has quit after expressing support for anti-government protests in the city and mocking pro-Chinese supporters on his personal Facebook account. The Facebook post by Jason Ng, who served as legal head of BNP’s debt capital markets, had triggered calls on Chinese social media for a boycott of the bank The resignation of Ng, confirmed by a source with knowledge of the matter, followed an earlier apology from the French bank, saying the remarks “did not reflect the view of BNP Paribas.” Ng declined to comment on his former employer and said it was a private matter. It’s unclear whether he volunteered to quit or was fired. BNP Paribas also decline

A Shanghai man who flew to Hong Kong to pursue a cyber-romance was jailed for 10 months on Tuesday after his supposedly 22-year-old girlfriend turned out to be 12. Interior designer Lu Wei, 28, came to the city last year to meet the girl, whom he had met playing games online, a Hong Kong court heard. Only after things had turned intimate did he learn that the girl, who had told him she was 22, was actually a decade younger. The District Court heard he decided to stay in the city and accept his punishment, despite having already bought a ticket home. He was sentenced on Tuesday after pleading guilty earlier to two counts of unlawful sex with a girl under 13, which carries a maximum sentence o

Four pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong were sentenced on Wednesday to up to 16 months in prison for their roles in the biggest civil disobedience movement in the city’s history. The sentencing marked the end of years of prosecutions brought against leaders and participants who took part in the 79-day protest in 2014, also known as the Umbrella Movement, that called for political change in the city. Two leaders of the movement, academics Benny Tai Yiu-ting, 54 and Dr Chan Kin-man, 60, received the longest prison terms, 16 months. The protests, which began on September 28 that year in the Central business district of Hong Kong, were sparked by frustration with restrictions Beijing had set

Nine organizers of the largest civil disobedience movement in Hong Kong’s history have been found guilty over their roles in the 2014 protests. They were the final group of protesters to go on trial over the 79-day Occupy Central protests, also known as the Umbrella Movement, which exposed clashing visions for the future of the semi-autonomous Chinese territory. China resumed control of the former British colony in 1997, promising the city a high degree of autonomy and eventual democratic elections. But a restrictive proposal Beijing issued in 2014 for what would have been the first-ever popular election of Hong Kong’s leader prompted thousands to occupy the city’s streets in protest. Concl

Nine key figures from Hong Kong’s massive Occupy protests in 2014 have pleaded not guilty to public nuisance charges, for their part in the civil disobedience movement for universal suffrage that shut down parts of the city for 79 days. The nine – including the movement’s three co-founders – chanted thundering slogans with hundreds of their supporters on Monday ahead of the trial. “We want true universal suffrage,” they yelled in unison, with an intensity that shook West Kowloon Court, where the nine are set to appear. The three co-founders – academics Benny Tai Yiu-ting and Dr Chan Kin-man, and Reverend Chu Yiu-ming – face one count of conspiracy to cause public nuisance, inciting others t

When her husband had an affair, she blamed herself and pledged to change.  She never got the chance.  A diary kept by the woman who was murdered by a Hong Kong professor using a gas-filled yoga ball has shed light on the Malaysian couple’s troubled marriage. Wong Siew Fing expressed deep regret at the demise of her relationship with Khaw Kim Sun in a diary obtained by the South China Morning Post. “I didn’t listen when my husband tried to tell me he needed me,” she wrote in a diary entry from 2013. Concerning her children, she wrote that she had failed to care for them or act as a role model to give them “the best in life.” Two years on from that entry, her husband murdered Wong and one of

At first, nobody guessed the deflated yoga ball in the trunk of the Mini Cooper had anything to do with the deaths of Wong Siew Fing, 47, and her 16-year-old daughter, Lily Khaw. Mother and child were found slumped in their parked car one day in May 2015. Both had died from carbon monoxide poisoning. For months, police investigators were left without leads. All tests found nothing wrong with the car. But then detectives spotted the vital clue everyone had overlooked: the deflated grey yoga ball in the trunk, its stopper nowhere to be found. “Why is it sitting there without a plug?” a detective wondered aloud. That was what eventually led to police uncovering the bizarre murder plot of Malays

A Malaysian professor has been put on trial in Hong Kong for allegedly killing his wife and daughter with a yoga ball filled with carbon monoxide.  Anesthetist Khaw Kim-sun, 53, put the exercise ball filled with the toxic gas in the trunk of his wife's yellow Mini Cooper in May 2015, prosecutors alleged at the High Court this week.  The gas then leaked into the car, killing his 47-year-old wife Wong Siew-fung and 16-year-old daughter Khaw Li-ling, the prosecutors said.  The professor has pleaded not guilty to the two counts of murder.  Khaw was an associate professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He was having an affair with a student at the time of the alleged murder, according t

The face of Hong Kong’s independence movement was jailed for six years on Monday, for his role in one of the city’s worst outbreaks of civil unrest in decades. Edward Leung, 27, was sentenced at the city’s High Court after a marathon 54-day trial that recounted in vivid detail the events of February 8 and 9, 2016, when a riot rocked the busy shopping district of Mong Kok. Prosecutors described how the night of chaos began with what appeared to be a scuffle between government hawker control officers and street vendors. Very quickly the clash escalated into a violent stand-off in which protesters hurled objects at police, who resorted to pepper spray to disperse the crowd. Streets were set on