Amnesty International: Ensure due process in Ken Tsang case

Amnesty International, the advocacy group for human rights, has urged Hong Kong authorities to uphold "international standards of fair trials" in the two cases involving Ken Tsang Kin-chiu.

Television footage showed the Civic Party activist being beaten and kicked by police officers during the pro-democracy protests last year.

Seven police officers were formally charged in the incident on Thursday, exactly a year after the incident.

The same day, Tsang was formally arrested and charged for allegedly having assaulted police officers and resisted arrest in an incident that took place about 10 minutes before the beating took place, in what the Department of Justice said was a “different” case.

“The government is trying to draw attention away from this important case of police accountability through what many see as the politically motivated timing of Ken Tsang’s simultaneous arrest and prosecution,” Mabel Au, director of Amnesty International Hong Kong, said in a statement.

“Rather than investigating and prosecuting each incident on its own merits, the authorities have elected to arrest Ken Tsang on the very day the prosecution against his abusers became public knowledge, without giving any good reasons why.”

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