HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong's top court on Monday upheld the convictions of seven of Hong Kong's most prominent pro-democracy activists over their roles in one of the biggest anti-government protests in 2019.
Jimmy Lai, founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper; Martin Lee, the founding chairman of the city’s Democratic Party; and five former pro-democracy lawmakers were found guilty in 2021 of organizing and participating in an unauthorized assembly.
Their convictions dealt a blow to the city's flagging pro-democracy movement during a political crackdown on dissidents following the protests.
Last year, the activists partially won their appeal at a lower court, with their convictions quashed over the charge of organizing an unauthorized assembly. But their convictions over taking part in the assembly were upheld and they continued their legal battle at the city's top court.
On Monday, judges at the Court of Final Appeal unanimously ruled against their appeal over the remaining convictions.
The defendants previously argued that the trial judge had failed to conduct an “operational proportionality” assessment when convicting them and quoted two non-binding decisions set out by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. The defense also suggested the judge should have taken into account that the procession did not become violent.
But Chief Justice Andrew Cheung and Justice Roberto Ribeiro said in their written judgment that the two British cases should not be adopted in the city's courts because the frameworks for human rights challenges in the two jurisdictions are different.
They ruled that the defendants' proposition was “unsustainable" and "is contrary to all established principles governing constitutional challenges in Hong Kong.”
“A separate proportionality inquiry in relation to arrest, prosecution, conviction and sentence is inappropriate and un-called for,” they wrote.
After the court handed down its decision, barrister Margaret Ng, one of the defendants, declined to comment before reading the judgment.
“We just want to take this occasion to thank our legal teams, and all the people who have been supporting us all the time,” she said.
The convictions were linked to their involvement in a rally in August 2019 that drew an estimated 1.7 million people onto Hong Kong’s streets to call for greater police accountability and democracy. The march was relatively peaceful compared to other protests that often morphed into violent clashes between police and protesters that year.
Hong Kong, a former British colony, returned to China in 1997. Its mini-constitution, the Basic Law, guarantees its people freedom of assembly.
When sentencing the seven activists in 2021, the trial judge at the District Court ruled that the right to such freedom is not absolute and is subject to restrictions ruled constitutional. She ordered Lai, Lee Cheuk-yan, Leung Kwok-hung and Cyd Ho to be jailed between eight and 18 months. Martin Lee, Ng and Albert Ho were given suspended jail sentences.
When the appellate court partially overturned their convictions in 2023, it quashed part of the sentences for the four who were given jail terms on the record. The decision was made after they already served out their sentences.
Lai, Lee Cheuk-yan, Leung and Albert Ho still remained in custody as they were also prosecuted or convicted under a Beijing-imposed national security law, which critics said has all but wiped out public dissent. Lai was also serving a prison term for a separate fraud case.
The Beijing and Hong Kong governments said the security law was necessary to bring back stability to the city following the protests.
The city government welcomed the judgement in a statement on Monday night, insisting its residents enjoy the right to peaceful assembly and that it must be exercised in conformity with the law.
The movement five years ago was the city’s most concerted challenge to the Hong Kong government since the 1997 handover. It waned with massive arrests and exiles of democracy activists, the COVID-19 pandemic and the introduction of the security law.
The signage of Hong Kong's Final Court of Appeal is seen at the court in Hong Kong Monday, Aug. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Katie Tam)
FILE - Pro-democracy lawyer Martin Lee speaks during an interview in Hong Kong, Friday, June 19, 2020. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu, File)
FILE - Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai pauses during an interview in Hong Kong on July 1, 2020. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu, File)
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran ’s rial currency traded Saturday at a record low against the U.S. dollar as the country returned to work after a long holiday, costing over 1 million rials for a single greenback as tensions between Tehran and Washington likely will push it even lower.
The exchange rate had plunged to over 1 million rials during the Persian New Year, Nowruz, as currency shops closed and only informal trading took place on the streets, creating additional pressure on the market. But as traders resumed work Saturday, the rate fell even further to 1,043,000 to the dollar, signaling the new low appeared here to stay.
On Ferdowsi Street in Iran’s capital, Tehran, the heart of the country’s money exchanges, some traders even switched off their electronic signs showing the going rate as uncertainty loomed over how much further the rial could drop.
“We turn it off since we are not sure about the successive changes of the rate,” said Reza Sharifi, who works at one exchange.
Iran’s economy has been severely affected by international sanctions, particularly after U.S. President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers in 2018. At the time of the 2015 deal, which saw Iran drastically limit its enrichment and stockpiling of uranium in exchange for lifting of international sanctions, the rial traded at 32,000 to the dollar.
After Trump returned to the White House for his second term in January, he restarted his so-called “maximum pressure” campaign targeting Tehran with sanctions. He again went after firms trading Iranian crude oil, including those selling at a discount in China.
Trump meanwhile has written to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, trying to jumpstart direct talks between Tehran and Washington. So far, Iran has maintained it is willing for indirect talks, but such discussions under the Biden administration failed to make headway.
Meanwhile, Trump is continuing an intense airstrike campaign targeting the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, the last force in Tehran’s self-described “Axis of Resistance” able to attack Israel after other militant groups were mauled by Israel during its war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Mehdi Darabi, a market analyst, said he believed that foreign pressures in recent months caused “expectations for the possibility of a decrease in oil sales and more inflation, and it caused a higher rate for hard currencies,” according to Tehran’s Donay-e-Eqtesad economic newspaper.
Economic upheavals have evaporated the public’s savings, pushing average Iranians into holding onto hard currencies, gold, cars and other tangible wealth. Others pursue cryptocurrencies or fall into get-rich-quick schemes.
Meanwhile, internal political pressure remains inflamed still over the mandatory hijab, or headscarf, with women still ignoring the law on the streets of Tehran. Rumors also persist over the government potentially increasing the cost of subsidized gasoline in the country, which has sparked nationwide protests in the past.
The falling rial has put more pressure as well on Iranian reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian. In March, when the rate was 930,000 rials to the dollar, Iran’s parliament impeached his finance minister, Abdolnasser Hemmati over the crashing rial and accusations of mismanagement.
Anger over government spending also saw Pezeshkian fire his vice president in charge of parliamentary affairs, Shahram Dabiri, for taking a luxury cruise to Antarctica, state media reported. Though Dabiri reportedly used his own money for the trip with his wife, the Instagram photos posted of his trip angered an Iranian public scrapping by to survive.
“In a situation where the economic pressures on people are huge and the number of deprived people is massive, expensive recreational trip by officials even by their own personal fund is not defendable and reasonable,” Pezeshkian said in firing Dabiri, who so far hasn’t offered any public explanation for his trip.
Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
A street money exchanger poses for a photo without showing his face as he counts U.S. dollars at Ferdowsi square, Tehran's go-to venue for foreign currency exchange, in downtown Tehran, Iran, Saturday, April 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A currency exchange bureau worker counts U.S. dollars at Ferdowsi square, Tehran's go-to venue for foreign currency exchange, in downtown Tehran, Iran, Saturday, April 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
FILE -A street money exchanger poses for a photo without showing his face as he counts Iranian banknotes at a commercial district in downtown Tehran, Iran, Dec. 23, 2022. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)
