BREAKING: 1 year, 2 months jail for first person convicted under Hong Kong’s new security law
Hong Kong Free Press
The first person convicted under Hong Kong’s new security legislation has been jailed for 14 months, after pleading guilty on Monday to sedition over wearing a T-shirt with a protest slogan on it.
Chu Kai-pong, 27, was convicted on Monday after 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.
He was arrested on June 12 while wearing a T-shirt with a 2019 protest slogan on it, “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times,” which has been ruled to carry secessionist connotations – an offence under a security law imposed by Beijing in 2020.
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.
Under Article 23, 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.
Chu’s lawyer Steven Kwan on Monday said the maximum sentence for Chu should be two years, as his case was being handled in a magistrates’ court.
Article 23 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.
Article 23 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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