Catholic peer calls out Hong Kong administration over ‘seditious t-shirt’ jail sentence
A Catholic peer has criticised the Hong Kong administration after it sentenced a young man to 14 months in jail for wearing a ‘seditious’ T-shirt.
This week West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts in Hong Kong issued the first sentencing under the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance (SNSO), known colloquially as ‘Article 23 legislation’. Chu Kai-pong, at 27 years of age, has been handed a 14-month jail sentence for wearing a “seditious” T-shirt for 25 minutes.
Magistrate Victor So ruled that Mr Chu, in wearing a T-shirt with the slogan ‘Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times’, and a yellow mask with an acronym standing for ‘Five demands, not one less’, both phrases associated with the 2019 pro-democracy movement, had intended to “stir up hatred” against the Hong Kong government.
Mr Chu was arrested on 12 June and convicted on 16 September after he pleaded guilty to one count of “doing with a seditious intention an act or acts that had a seditious intention” under the SNSO.
Lord Alton of Liverpool, crossbench Peer in the House of Lords and Hong Kong Watch Patron, criticised the decision heavily and called on the UK government to condemn the sentences.
“Chief Executive John Lee said that Article 23 legislation was necessary to counter serious security threats and protect Hong Kong,” said Lord Alton.
“Now we can see that, according to John Lee, Hong Kong must be protected from the serious threat posed by ‘seditious’ T-shirts.
“It is hard to imagine a more perfect demonstration of the paranoia and overreaction of the Lee administration than throwing an individual in jail for over a year for wearing the wrong clothes. The UK government should condemn this farcical abuse of power and, furthermore, ensure that UKVI does not automatically reject the BNO visa applications of Hong Kongers who have been subject to this sort of politically-motivated custodial sentence.”
The sentencing of Mr Chu was followed by that of 29-year-old Chung Man-kit, who was arrested on 23 June under the SNSO for “writing words with seditious intention on multiple occasions on the back of bus seats on different public buses in March and April”. He pleaded guilty for three counts of “doing with a seditious intention an act or acts that had a seditious intention,” and was sentenced to 10 months behind bars.
Under the SNSO, which was passed by the Hong Kong government in March 2024 and condemned around the world, 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 sentence was handed down just ahead of Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee’s appearance at the British Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong next week, where he is expected to deliver a keynote address at the ‘BritCham Hong Kong Summit 2024’ on economic opportunities for foreign businesses in Hong Kong, despite the severe threat posed to businesses by the SNSO.
The decisions have also been condemned by Hong Kong Watch, a non-governmental organisation based in the UK that was established to monitor the conditions of human rights, freedoms and rule of law in Hong Kong.
Sarah Champion, Labour MP for Rotherham and Hong Kong Watch Patron, said: “I’m deeply concerned that the British Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong is inviting Chief Executive John Lee to extol the benefits of Hong Kong while his government throws individuals in jail for wearing ‘seditious’ T-shirts.
“The Chamber should urgently reconsider inviting John Lee to speak at their BritCham Summit next week. Things are far from ‘business as usual’ in Hong Kong, as this sentencing shows, and the Chamber should not offer Lee a platform to justify his draconian crackdown in the name of securing Hong Kong’s prosperity.”
https://www.hongkongwatch.org/
