A 27-year-old man faces up to several years in jail for sedition, after pleading guilty to wearing a protest T-shirt that prosecutors say flouts Hong Kong’s new national security law.
Chu Kai-pong (諸啟邦) had already served a three-month prison term for sedition in January for wearing and keeping in his luggage clothes and flags with protest slogans.
Yesterday, he pleaded guilty to one count of “doing acts with seditious intent,” leading to the territory’s first conviction under the new tougher law.
File photo: grab from FB
One of the slogans on the T-shirt, “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times,” had been found to be “capable of inciting secession” in a separate court case.
Chu was arrested for wearing a T-shirt with the offending slogan and a yellow mask printed with “FDNOL” — the shorthand of another slogan “five demands, not one less” — on June 12 — a date associated with the huge and sometimes violent democracy protests in 2019.
Chu told police he believed the slogan called for the return of Hong Kong to British rule, the court heard, and he chose the outfit to remind the public of the 2019 protests when the phrase was widely used by pro-democracy demonstrators.
Photo: Reuters
Convicting Chu following his guilty plea, chief magistrate Victor So (蘇惠德) added that two other offenses of failing to produce an ID card and loitering were dropped.
Chu, who has been in custody for three months, is to be sentenced on Thursday.
Hong Kong enacted a tougher national security law in March, the second legislation of its kind following the one imposed by Beijing in the middle of 2020 afterb quashing the protests.
The revised law beefed up the offense of sedition — a colonial-era offense — to include inciting hatred of China’s communist leadership and upped its maximum jail sentence from two years to seven.
It also punishes five categories of crimes: treason, insurrection, sabotage, espionage and external interference.
Chu’s lawyer argued that the maximum he could be given would be two years. Sedition was created under British colonial rule, which ended in 1997, and was seldom used until Hong Kong authorities revived it in 2020 and charged more than 50 people and four companies.
Critics, including Western nations such as the US, say the new security law would further erode freedoms and silence dissent in Hong Kong.
However, authorities defended the law as necessary to fulfill a “constitutional responsibility,” comparing it to a “reliable lock to prevent someone from breaking into [our] home.”
As of last month, 301 people had been arrested under the two security laws, with 176 prosecuted and 157 convicted.
Additional reporting by Reuters
People can preregister to receive their NT$10,000 (US$325) cash distributed from the central government on Nov. 5 after President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday signed the Special Budget for Strengthening Economic, Social and National Security Resilience, the Executive Yuan told a news conference last night. The special budget, passed by the Legislative Yuan on Friday last week with a cash handout budget of NT$236 billion, was officially submitted to the Executive Yuan and the Presidential Office yesterday afternoon. People can register through the official Web site at https://10000.gov.tw to have the funds deposited into their bank accounts, withdraw the funds at automated teller
PEACE AND STABILITY: Maintaining the cross-strait ‘status quo’ has long been the government’s position, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Taiwan is committed to maintaining the cross-strait “status quo” and seeks no escalation of tensions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday, rebutting a Time magazine opinion piece that described President William Lai (賴清德) as a “reckless leader.” The article, titled “The US Must Beware of Taiwan’s Reckless Leader,” was written by Lyle Goldstein, director of the Asia Program at the Washington-based Defense Priorities think tank. Goldstein wrote that Taiwan is “the world’s most dangerous flashpoint” amid ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He said that the situation in the Taiwan Strait has become less stable
CONCESSION: A Shin Kong official said that the firm was ‘willing to contribute’ to the nation, as the move would enable Nvidia Crop to build its headquarters in Taiwan Shin Kong Life Insurance Co (新光人壽) yesterday said it would relinquish land-use rights, or known as surface rights, for two plots in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投), paving the way for Nvidia Corp to expand its office footprint in Taiwan. The insurer said it made the decision “in the interest of the nation’s greater good” and would not seek compensation from taxpayers for potential future losses, calling the move a gesture to resolve a months-long impasse among the insurer, the Taipei City Government and the US chip giant. “The decision was made on the condition that the Taipei City Government reimburses the related
FRESH LOOK: A committee would gather expert and public input on the themes and visual motifs that would appear on the notes, the central bank governor said The central bank has launched a comprehensive redesign of New Taiwan dollar banknotes to enhance anti-counterfeiting measures, improve accessibility and align the bills with global sustainability standards, Governor Yang Chin-long (楊金龍) told a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee yesterday. The overhaul would affect all five denominations — NT$100, NT$200, NT$500, NT$1,000 and NT$2,000 notes — but not coins, Yang said. It would be the first major update to the banknotes in 24 years, as the current series, introduced in 2001, has remained in circulation amid rapid advances in printing technology and security standards. “Updating the notes is essential to safeguard the integrity
RSS