British activist jailed in China for Olympics protest

A British man was sentenced to serve six months in a Hong Kong jail after being found guilty of causing a public nuisance.

Matt Pearce, a teacher originally from Bristol but who now lives on the territory’s island, staged a protest against China’s human rights record on a Hong Kong bridge on August 8 last year - the opening day of the Summer Olympics in Beijing.

The 33-year-old hung banners that read ‘We want human rights and democracy’ and ‘The people of China want freedom from oppression’ on road signs on the Tsing Ma Bridge in a protest that lasted for two hours and caused major traffic congestion as police tried to remove him.

After a three-day trial Mr Pearce was found guilty of causing a public nuisance earlier this month but was cleared of a separate charge of common assault.

In 2005 the veteran activist, who is the founding member of an organisation called International Action, was sentenced to 21 days in prison after dressing as Spiderman and scaling a giant television screen in the Central district of Hong Kong on the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square killings. The sentence was later suspended for 18 months on appeal.

He was also convicted of causing a public nuisance after staging a protest in a horse costume at the Hong Kong races, in 2004, again receiving a suspended jail sentence.

Prior to the verdict, Mr Pearce had insisted he was keen to continue to stage protests in Hong Kong regardless of the outcome of this trial.

“I believe in what I am doing and the style and approach and the strategy I am adopting is what I think is exactly what Hong Kong needs,” he said.

“I am hoping that I will influence some of the other activists here and if more people started doing what I am doing then it would be quite a big problem for the Government.”

©2009 Associated Newspapers Limited

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