Dear friends,
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is happy to inform you that Mr. Yun Il-kwan, the 36-year-old Korean farmer and last anti-WTO protester facing prosecution, was acquitted by the Fanling Magistrates’ Courts, Hong Kong yesterday. We wish to thank you very much for your great support in this case.
On 30 March 2006, Andrew MA, the principle magistrate of the Fanling Magistrates’ Court acquitted Mr. Yun Il-kwan due to lack of evidence. Mr. Yun had been accused by the police of involvement in violent acts during the confrontation between the police and anti-WTO protesters on 17 December 2005 and charged with unlawful assembly. Supporters cheered at
Fanling Courtas the magistrate announced the acquittal of Mr. Yun.
Principle magistrate Andrew Ma Hon-cheunng said in his judgment that “the only issue in this case is identification.” Magistrate Ma said that it did not seem that the defendants had much choice on the mode of identification process as they had undertaken to assist the police in the investigation in the course of bail application. He also said, “The fundamental weakness was the identification of foreigners who were also strangers to the prosecution witnesses. Most local police officers have little opportunity to deal with, or meet, Korean subjects.” Magistrate Ma said that the outcome may have been different if the police had accepted the actors offered by the defence. Even though the defence had offered to arrange Korean actors for the identification parade after police pressed charges against 11 Korean protesters, the police refused to accept them stressing that only those Koreans who had not participated in any WTO-related activities could be actors. A full English judgment can be viewed at: http://www.ahrchk.net/ua/pdf/up-064-2006-wtojudgement.pdf
After being acquitted, Mr. Yun said to the media that justice had prevailed. He added that he hoped the day would be remembered as one when the injustices of the World Trade Organization had been dealt a heavy blow. He also thanked the Hong Kong people for their warm support and said that he would return to Hong Kong to see his friends.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth Tang Yin-ngor, spokeswoman for the Hong Kong People’s Alliance on WTO (HKPA), called for an independent investigation into the procedures used by senior officers. She said to the media, “The whole investigation was conducted in a rough and careless manner, and the police have not been following their protocol in the identification process.” On 15 March 2006, the HKPA and the AHRC jointly submitted a 53-page comprehensive report titled “Human Rights Violations, during the policing arrests and detentions during the WTO protest in Hong Kong in December 2005” to the UN Human Rights Committee, which was scheduled to consider the second report of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China in light of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights during its 86th session. To see the full text of the report, please visit: http://www.ahrchk.net/pdf/HKPA_AHRC-UNReport2006.pdf
BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
Fourteen of the 1,000 protesters (11 Koreans, 1 Japanese, 1 Taiwanese and 1 Chinese) arrested over the anti-WTO protest on December 17 were charged, but the charges against 11 were soon dropped. Of the three Koreans left facing prosecution, one, Yang Kyung-kyu, had the charges against him dropped six weeks ago and another, Park In-hwan, was formally acquitted of unlawful assembly last week after Magistrate Andrew Ma Hon-cheung ruled he had no case to answer. To see details of this case, please refer to: FA-36-2005, FA-001-2006 and AS-132-2005. Please also refer to our statements relating to this matter: AS-129-2005 and AS-45-2006.
Thank you.
Urgent Appeals Programme
Asian Human Rights Commission (ahrchk@ahrchk.org)
To support this case, please click here: SEND APPEAL LETTER
SAMPLE LETTER
