Appeal for localist's supporters to avoid free-from-jail drama

The family of localist Edward Leung Tin-kei has told supporters not to pick him up when he is released from prison today after serving a six-year sentence in Shek Pik Prison on Lantau for rioting in Mong Kong during the Lunar New Year holiday in 2016.

The family also said yesterday that Leung's Facebook page will remove all its content and stop operating from today, following legal advice, to protect him.

The page's primary purpose was to raise funds and help send letters from the public to Leung during the years he spent behind bars.

The family told supporters "not to travel a long way to Shek Pik" to see him and asked them to put their own safety first.

"Please let Tin-kei return home as soon as possible to reunite with his family," the family wrote.

"During the past, volunteers have collected all your thoughts and wishes and conveyed them to Tin-kei," it said. "Now, we are about to complete our historic mission."

Leung, 30, former spokesman of Hong Kong Indigenous, was sentenced in June 2018 to six years by the High Court after being convicted of rioting during the so-called "Fishball Revolution" in Mong Kok on the first night of the Lunar New Year in February 2016.

He had also pleaded guilty to assaulting a police officer, for which he was sentenced to 12 months but served concurrently.

Leung, who is listed as a category A prisoner for those who pose the most threat to the public, has served the whole sentence after deducting public holidays.

Considering Leung's sensitive identity, some expected that there will be a large crowd and media gathering to greet him.

Authorities are considering plans such as allowing him to leave the prison by himself or deploying a special vehicle to take him home.

In 2015, Leung joined Hong Kong Indigenous - founded by self-exiled activist Ray Wong Toi-yeung - and participated in the New Territories East by-election the following year.

His election slogan was"Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times," which would become the mantra of protesters during the anti-fugitive bill unrest in 2019.

Leung lost the by-election to now-remanded barrister Alvin Yeung Ngok-kiu.

He then ran in the Legislative Council election in September 2016 but was disqualified by the returning officer, who said she did not believe Leung had genuinely changed his previous stance on independence.

Leung earned his bachelor's degree in philosophy with a minor in politics and public administration from the University of Hong Kong in 2017.