An elderly woman who became a fixture of Hong Kong's democracy protests was jailed on Wednesday for unlawful assembly, a day after courts imprisoned a terminally ill 75-year-old activist.

Alexandra Wong, 66, popularly known as "Grandma Wong", was a regular presence at the protests three years ago, usually waving a British Union Jack flag.

Prosecutors accused her of participating in two unlawful assemblies on August 11, 2019 and shouting "offensive words", adding that her flag-waving and slogans encouraged an illegal gathering.

Principal Magistrate Ada Yim jailed Wong for eight months citing the "scale and disruption to social order" of the democracy protests.

Unlawful assembly is one of the primary charges used by prosecutors against participants of the huge and sometimes violent democracy rallies that convulsed Hong Kong for months in 2019.

More than 2,800 people have been prosecuted for protest related offences, while a security law imposed by Beijing in 2020 has effectively now criminalised dissent in Hong Kong.

Wong earlier this year pleaded not guilty but she switched her plea on Wednesday, the first day of her trial.

From the dock, the bespectacled and grey-haired Wong struck a defiant note and criticised Hong Kong's government as an "authoritarian regime".

She also reiterated an earlier claim that she had been interrogated and detained by security agents in the Chinese mainland for nearly 14 months and was forced to give written and filmed confessions.

Wong disappeared half way through the 2019 protests.

She later re-emerged saying she was intercepted during a trip back to Shenzhen, the mainland city next to Hong Kong.

She alleged that she was kept in detention facilities in the mainland, taken on a "patriotic trip" and was kept in de facto house arrest until she was later allowed to return to Hong Kong.

In April, Wong was convicted of obstructing a police officer in a separate case and sentenced to six days in jail with an 18-month suspension.

In July last year, she was sentenced to one month in prison after she was found guilty of assaulting a security guard at the High Court lobby in January 2019.

Her jailing came a day after a Hong Kong court gave veteran activist and terminal cancer patient Koo Sze-yiu nine months in prison.

Koo was convicted of "attempted sedition" over a planned protest against Beijing's Winter Olympics that was foiled by a pre-emptive arrest.

Fugitive Hong Kong protester who survived shooting captured
Hong Kong (AFP) July 14, 2022 –

A young man shot by Hong Kong police during democracy protests appeared in court on Thursday after spending more than a year in hiding, often in grim conditions controlled by people smugglers, police announced.

Tsang Chi-kin, 21, was shot in the chest as he and a group of protesters attacked police officers in October 2019, the first person struck with a live round during the months of huge and sometimes violent protests that rocked the city.

He survived his injuries and was later charged with rioting and assaulting police but skipped bail in late 2020 and vanished.

He resurfaced in police custody on Thursday with Beijing-aligned media reporting that officers swooped on Tsang and three others as they attempted to flee to Taiwan by speedboat.

Hong Kong's national security police declined to comment on whether the group planned to flee to Taiwan.

But at a briefing on Thursday they detailed how the four — aged between 16 and 24 — had previously tried and failed to claim asylum at the United States consulate and then spent more than a year in hiding at the whim of a smuggling network.

Senior superintendent Steve Li said Tsang and his companions were desperate, near broke, "skinny and dejected" when officers detained them on Wednesday.

Li said members of a social media channel had promised to aid Tsang and the others in exchange for money, initially pushing the failed US consulate asylum but the group was turned away.

The channel members then allegedly hid Tsang and the others in a windowless industrial building with "very poor conditions" and when they switched hiding places they put the fugitives into sealed cardboard boxes during transport.

"Psychologically it was very bad, they felt like they were sold into indentured servitude," Li said.

Tsang and the others paid up to a total of HK$400,000 ($51,000) in smuggling fees and they were told to shoot fundraising videos — all for nothing in return, according to police.

Police said they arrested a 34-year-old warehouse worker who assisted the smugglers and are tracking around 10 other suspects who have fled overseas, including to the United Kingdom.

Tsang appeared in court with shoulder-length hair and a subdued demeanour.

Prosecutors said Tsang presented an "extreme flight risk" and he was remanded in custody with the case adjourned to September 13.