Martin Lee, Albert Ho, and Margaret Ng. (l-r) Martin Lee, Albert Ho, and Margaret Ng. Credit: Courtesy/VOA via Wikimedia Commons

Several pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong have been handed jail terms for participating in anti-government protests in 2019, including three veteran lawyers.

Hong Kong's most senior barrister Martin Lee Chu-ming, known as the city's "father of democracy," was handed a suspended 11-month sentence. Solicitor and former lawmaker Albert Ho and barrister Margaret Ng were handed one-year jail terms, suspended for two years. They were among nine activists, many former lawmakers, who received sentences on Friday of between eight and 18 months.

The three lawyers were charged with organizing and taking part in an unauthorized assembly in August 2019, attended by an estimated 300,000 people.

Lee, 82, is the founding chairman of the local Democratic Party and a former chairman of the Hong Kong Bar Association. In June 2019, he led a silent march of thousands of legal professionals in protest against a proposal to extradite criminals to mainland China.