BREAKING: Pro-democracy DJ Tam Tak-chi loses bid to appeal ‘seditious’ speech conviction and jail term

Hong Kong Free Press

Pro-democracy DJ Tam Tak-chi has lost a bid to appeal his conviction and 40-month sentence under the city’s colonial-era sedition law, in a case that promises to have far-reaching ramifications for Hong Kong’s legal landscape.

Fast Beat Tam Tak-chi — Hong Kong activist “Fast Beat” Tam Tak-chi. File photo: Etan Liam, via Flickr.

Better known as “Fast Beat,” Tam launched his appeal bid last July, after being found guilty of 11 charges, including seven counts of “uttering seditious words,” in March 2022. He was sentenced the following month.

The Court of Appeal on Thursday ruled that an intention to incite violence is not an essential element of the offence of sedition, and that “[s]editious intention in any given criminal code must be interpreted by reference to the specific legal and social landscape in which it exists.”

During the appeal hearing last July, Tam’s barrister Philip Dykes argued that Hong Kong’s sedition law fell short of international standards as it failed to include a defendant’s intent to incite violence as an essential element of the offence.

During Tam’s trial – the city’s first sedition trial since its return from British to Chinese rule in 1997 – the prosecution had failed to prove that Tam intended to incite violence through his speech, Dykes said. As a result, the sedition law constituted a disproportionate restriction of freedom of speech and expression.

Prosecutor Anthony Chau, however, said that sedition charges were statutory offences and thus it was not necessary to prove an intention to incite violence. During the development of the sedition law, Chau added, the intention of threat to injury had been removed as an element of sedition.

Impact of ruling

The impact of the judgement handed down on Thursday by High Court judges Jeremy Poon, Derek Pang and Anthea Pang will be felt in other high-profile cases.

The verdict in the trial of two former editors of independent news outlet Stand News charged with conspiring to publish seditious publications was delayed pending the outcome of Tam’s appeal, with a ruling expected within 30 days of Thursday’s judgement.

Stand News editors Patrick Lam (left) and Chung Pui-kuen outside District Court on November 15, 2023. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP.

Separately, an appeal application from a 19-year-old convicted of sedition and insulting national symbols was put on hold until after the Court of Appeal had ruled on Tam’s case. The court said last July that it would hear that appeal within two weeks of the ruling on Tam’s.

Sedition is not covered by the Beijing-imposed national security law, which targets secession, subversion, collusion with foreign forces and terrorist acts and mandates up to life imprisonment. Those convicted under the sedition law – last amended in the 1970s when Hong Kong was still a British colony – face a maximum penalty of two years in prison.

More to come – refresh for updates…

Additional reporting: Mercedes Hutton