HK Occupy leader Wong to stand trial

Joshua Wong Chi-fung, a pan-democratic student group leader and one of the initiators of the Occupy Central last year, is accused of obstructing a police officer from performing his duties and is standing trial Friday. Wong, the leader of Scholarism, and Nathan Law Kwun-chung, a member of the group, were arrested Tuesday and were accused of obstructing police officers during a demonstration in June 2014. During the event, the two protested outside the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government and burned a copy of the white paper on the practice of the "one country, two systems" policy. Wong said after being released on bail that he was surprised the prosecutors filed the lawsuit against him a year after the event took place and suspected that the government action was politically motivated. But he admitted the video footage showed he had physical contact with a police officer. "The case cannot be viewed as political prosecution if it involved criminal behavior. Political prosecution can be defined as prosecution of a person who did not commit a crime for political purposes, while it is legitimate and in accordance with normal judicial procedure to prosecute Wong as the case involved a criminal act," Paul Tse Wai-chun, a Hong Kong legislator and local lawyer, told the Global Times Thursday. If there was sufficient evidence to show that Wong deliberately pushed the police officer, it is likely that the judge would declare Wong guilty while the case could be used as an example to deter others, he said.