A Canadian activist says he fears the “lenient” sentences given to two men who admitted assaulting him may embolden protesters associated with Steve Bannon and a Chinese billionaire’s organization to further harass people around the world.
Yin Shiliang and Mu Bai, who were arrested after the beating of Louis Huang — a Canadian activist who has lobbied Ottawa to act on foreign interference by the Chinese government — in November 2020, both pleaded guilty to assault causing bodily harm.
Yin and Mu are associated with the protest group founded by Bannon (former White House Chief strategist under Donald Trump) and Chinese billionaire Miles Guo, according to Surrey RCMP.
A judge at Surrey provincial court sentenced Yin last November to partial house arrest for seven months (during evening hours) and last week granted Mu conditional discharge, meaning that Mu does not need to serve any time under house arrest.
“I was shocked,” Huang told the Star. “This isn’t justice. Since the cost of violence is minimal, it sends a message to our community that we won’t be safe from future attacks.”
Prosecutor Corrine Proctor had sought a four-to-six-month jail sentence for Yin and a three-month conditional sentence order (house arrest) for Mu.
The BC Prosecution Service said in a statement that although the sentences were not the sentences sought by the Crown, they were “within the range of appropriate (penalties) based on the circumstances and the relevant case law.”
“The Crown recognized the mitigating circumstances which included the guilty plea and the background of the two offenders including the lack of a criminal record,” the spokesperson said.
The sentences cannot be appealed because conditions for appealing an illegal or unfit sentence are not met, I added.
The Surrey court had viewed a surveillance video capturing the attack, showing the two men kicking Huang repeatedly in the head and neck as he laid on the pavement of a suburban cul-de-sac in Metro Vancouver.
Huang — who was left with a broken bone in his face, permanent eye damage and a knocked-out tooth — is the co-founder of the Vancouver Society of Freedom, Democracy & Human Rights in China. The group regularly lobbies the Canadian government to guard against Beijing’s attempts to influence Canadian institutions.
Huang is a friend of Benson Gao, a journalist and critic of the Chinese government, who was the main target of protesters who gathered outside his home in the Metro Vancouver neighborhood almost every day between Sept. 14 and Dec. 1, 2020.
On the day of the attack, Huang was waiting outside his friend’s home to accompany Gao to meetings with city officials.
In an October 2020 interview with the Star, the protesters said they were peaceful “citizens” of the “New Federal State of China.” The goal of the New Federal State of China, declared in June 2020 by banners carried by aircraft flying over American cities, is to take down the Chinese Communist Party and create an alternative Chinese state.
Protests associated with the group in the US saw the FBI and local law enforcement responding to reports of bomb threats and death threats.
Yin and Mu’s lawyer could not be reached for comment.
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