Chu used to be arrested on June 12 at a MTR web page carrying a T-shirt with the slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times” and a yellow conceal printed with “FDNOL”- the shorthand of any other slogan “5 requires, no longer one much less”.
Reuters
16 September, 2024, 11:15 am
Last modified: 16 September, 2024, 11:22 am
A Hong Kong man on Monday pleaded responsible to sedition for carrying a T-shirt with a boom slogan, turning into the first particular person convicted below the metropolis’s original nationwide security law handed in March.
Chu Kai-pong, 27, pleaded responsible to 1 depend of “doing with a seditious procedure an act”.
Under the original security law, primarily the most sentence for the offence has been expanded from two years to seven years in jail and may perhaps per chance perhaps even poke up to 10 years if “collusion with foreign forces” used to be chanced on alive to.
Chu used to be arrested on June 12 at a MTR web page carrying a T-shirt with the slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times” and a yellow conceal printed with “FDNOL”- the shorthand of any other slogan “5 requires, no longer one much less”.
Both slogans were step by step chanted within the huge, steadily violent decent-democracy protests in 2019 and June 12 used to be a key kick-off day of the months-prolonged unrests.
Chu told police that he wore the T-shirt to remind of us of the protests, the court docket heard.
Chief Justice of the Peace Victor So, handpicked by the metropolis chief John Lee to hear nationwide security cases, adjourned the case to Thursday for sentencing.
Hong Kong used to be returned from Britain to China in 1997 below Beijing’s promise of guaranteeing its freedoms, at the side of freedom of speech, may perhaps be protected below a “one nation, two programs” design.
Beijing imposed a nationwide security law in 2020 punishing secession, subversion, terrorism or collusion with foreign forces with up to lifestyles in jail, after the months-prolonged protests within the monetary hub.
In March 2024, Hong Kong handed a second original security law — a home-grown ordinance steadily identified as “Article 23” in step with its parent provision within the metropolis’s mini constitution, the Customary Law.
Critics, at the side of the U.S. authorities beget expressed issues over the original security law and said the vaguely outlined provisions relating to “sedition” may perhaps be faded to curb dissent.
Hong Kong and Chinese language officers beget said it used to be fundamental to lunge “loopholes” within the nationwide security regime.