Sulu Sou to begin trial today at Court of First Appeal

Lawmaker and political activist Sulu Sou will stand trial this morning at the Court of First Appeal, facing charges of qualified disobedience linked to a  demonstration in 2016.

Sou is accused of disobeying police authorities during a street protest led by the New Macau Association, against the Macao Foundation over a RMB100 million grant to Jinan University in Guangdong.

The trial was originally scheduled to be held on January 16, but was postponed while the young lawmaker and pro-democrat activist filed several appeals regarding the lawfulness of the procedure leading to his suspension.

Those appeals were rejected by the Court of Second Instance earlier this year, resulting in the suspended lawmaker to contemplate taking the case to the Court of Final Appeal.

Sou was suspended from his role of a lawmaker in December last year so that his prosecutorial immunity could be waived and he could stand trial. The Legislative Assembly approved the suspension with 28 votes in favor and just four against.

However, Sou claims that the parliament overstepped a series of procedures disregarding the Basic Law and the House Rules of the Legislative Assembly. Among the violations, the lawmaker says, one of the most serious was that he was being denied the right to defend himself at the legislature.

The case has been criticized for being politically motivated, but this accusation has been refuted on numerous occasions by the Secretary for Security, Wong Sio Chak.