By Chris Yeung
Given a chance, few people, if any, would have hoped to have Occupy Central happened. Flashed back to late September 2014, Hong Kong saw 79 days of mayhem unfolded in Admiralty, later in Causeway Bay and Mongkok. Inter-personal relations at homes, workplaces and social gatherings were strained, at times tense, when Occupy became the unwelcome, yet unavoidable, guest. Views were sharply divided. Yes. That was history; it belongs to the past. But no. It is still causing a stir and, worse, fresh wounds in people’s hearts and the city’s systems.
On Friday, seven police officers were sentenced to jail for assaulting activist Ken Tsang Kin-chiu at a dark place in Tamar Park during the movement. Instead of bringing one of the most unfortunate clashes during the 2014 government-people stand-off to an end, the court decision, or more accurately, the aftermath of which risks inflicting new damages to society and, also importantly, trust and respect to the city’s institutions.
