Eleven of the 14 anti-WTO protesters arrested during last month's Sixth WTO Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong were released on Wednesday for lack of evidence.

On December 17, a day before the conference ended, about 1,000 protesters carrying wooden poles and metal bars clashed with riot police and tried to break into the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center, the conference venue.

More than 900 of the protesters were arrested, with all but 14 released on bail later.

Inside the unusually packed Kwun Tong Magistracy on Wednesday, more than 200 people, most of them rooting for the protesters, filled the public gallery and even spilled over to near the entrance. Occasional shouts of "not guilty" and "release now" could be heard inside the court.

After an adjournment of more than one hour, prosecutors dropped charges against 11 of them because "evidence did not suffice."

All the remaining three are South Koreans. The Kwun Tong Magistracy, however, allowed them to return to South Korea on a cash bail of HK$30,000 (about US$3,870) each. Their trial resumes on March 1 at Fanling Magistracy for which they have to return to the city.

Park Inh-wan and Yun Il-kwon were charged with unlawful assembly, and Yang Kyung-kyu with unauthorized assembly.

Although Yun and Yang pleaded guilty at first, they changed their plea when prosecutors laid "additional charges" on them.
 
One of the defence lawyers, Cheung Yiu-leung, said that the point of contention was the extent to which the crime had been committed because there were "irrelevant things" in the summary of facts on which the magistrate had to make his judgment.

Unlawful assembly is a more serious charge compared to unauthorized assembly because the former involves violence, provocative and intimidating acts that are likely to create fear in public. The maximum penalty for both charges is three years imprisonment, Cheung said.

Later outside the court, Yang explained why they changed their plea: "We initially wanted to resolve this case as smoothly as possible, so we compromised. That didn't mean we were actually guilty. But the prosecutors added new charges against us, making us sound like rioters and appear violent, so we could no longer make any compromise."

"There is not enough evidence against the protesters and we believe we have proved our innocence. The three (who have been) charged decided not to admit the charges because we believe the anti-WTO struggle was a legitimate one."

South Korea parliamentarian Tan Pyong-ho thanked all those who had helped the protesters during the past days. "I believe that it is because of all of you that we could achieve today's result," he said.

The South Korean protesters, who have been on a hunger strike since January 6, are hoping to leave Hong Kong on Friday.

(China Daily January 12, 2006)