Hongkonger charged with sedition under Article 23 security law over social media posts
Hong Kong Free Press
A 57-year-old man has been charged under Hong Kong’s homegrown security law, known as Article 23, over allegedly publishing “seditious” posts on social media platforms.
The National Security Department of the police laid a charge of “knowingly publishing publications that had a seditious intention” against the man on Wednesday morning, according to a government statement issued at 2 pm the same day.
The defendant will appear at West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts on Wednesday afternoon, where his case will be mentioned.
According to the statement, the man was arrested in Hung Hom on Tuesday. National security police accused him of “repeatedly publishing online posts with seditious intentions.”
The statement said the posts incited “hatred towards the Central Authorities and the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region as well as inciting violence.”
Separate to the 2020 Beijing-enacted security law, the homegrown Safeguarding National Security Ordinance targets treason, insurrection, sabotage, external interference, sedition, theft of state secrets and espionage. It allows for pre-charge detention of to up to 16 days, and suspects’ access to lawyers may be restricted, with penalties involving up to life in prison. Article 23 was shelved in 2003 amid mass protests, remaining taboo for years. But, on March 23, 2024, it was enacted having been fast-tracked and unanimously approved at the city’s opposition-free legislature.
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.
Under Article 23, the maximum penalty for sedition was raised to seven years in jail, up from two years, while offenders found to have colluded with an “external force” in committing sedition face a maximum of 10 years behind bars.
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