First person convicted under Hong Kong’s new security law after pleading guilty to wearing ‘seditious’ T-shirt
Hong Kong Free Press
A Hongkonger has pleaded guilty to sedition over a T-shirt with a protest slogan on it, becoming the first person convicted under the city’s new security legislation.
Chu Kai-pong, 27, appeared in front of Chief Magistrate Victor So at West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts on Monday.
He pleaded guilty to one count of “doing with a seditious intention an act or acts that had a seditious intention,” under the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, known colloquially as Article 23.
Chu was the first person charged under Article 23, according to HKFP’s records. He was arrested on June 12 this year after being intercepted by police near Shek Mun MTR station.
He was wearing a top and a mask printed with statements that police said could incite hatred, contempt or disaffection against the “fundamental system of the state established by the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China,” according to a police statement.
According to case details read out in court, Chu told police that he had worn the T-shirt, which bore the 2019 protest slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times,” on June 12 – the anniversary of intense clashes between protesters and police – to remind people of the protests and in the hope that people would sympathise with the protest slogan.
During Hong Kong’s first trial under a separate national security law imposed in 2020 by Beijing, the court ruled that the phrase carried secessionist connotations.
Chu also said he had bought the protest slogan T-shirt – and another printed with the words “Hong Kong Independence” – from a company in Taiwan.
Chu was also wearing a yellow mask printed with the letters “FDNOL” when he was arrested, an acronym for another protest slogan, “five demands, not one less,” which referred to the movement’s demands.
The court on Monday also heard that Chu had said under police caution that FDNOL had a similar meaning to the “Liberate Hong Kong” slogan.
But Chu’s lawyer Steven Kwan clarified with the court that the slogan for the protests’ demands had not been ruled illegal, and had a different meaning entirely.
Kwan also asked the court to consider that there was no proof that people were affected or “incited” by the eight-character slogan within the 25 minutes that Chu had the t-shirt on, and that he had not made use of the internet in committing the offence.
Chu’s mother had submitted a mitigation letter, Kwan told the court. Magistrate So adjourned sentencing to Thursday.
Kwan agreed that a custodial sentence would be the only choice, but hoped the court would afford Chu the maximum one-third sentence discount for his guilty plea.
Kwan also submitted that Chu’s four earlier criminal convictions were an aggravating factor. Chu was in January jailed for three months over wearing a “seditious” t-shirt bearing the same protest slogan.
Protests erupted in June 2019 over a since-axed extradition bill. They escalated into sometimes violent displays of dissent against police behaviour, amid calls for democracy and anger over Beijing’s encroachment. Demonstrators demanded an independent probe into police conduct, amnesty for those arrested and a halt to the characterisation of protests as “riots.”
Article 23
Separate to the 2020 Beijing-enacted security law, the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance targets treason, insurrection, sabotage, external interference, sedition, theft of state secrets and espionage.
It was fast-tracked through the city’s opposition-free legislature earlier this year and enacted on March 23, two decades after an attempt to pass similar legislation in 2003 failed following mass protests.
Under the new law, sedition carries a maximum penalty of seven years in jail, or 10 years if the offender is found to have colluded with an “external force.” The offence was previously punishable by up to two years in prison for a first offence, and up to three years for re-offenders.
The law has been criticised by rights NGOs, Western states and the UN as vague, broad and “regressive.” Authorities, however, cited perceived foreign interference and a constitutional duty to “close loopholes” after the 2019 protests and unrest.
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