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Hong Kong Court Convicts Man Over Slogan Chanted by Thousands

A Hong Kong court has handed down guilty verdicts in the first trial under national security legislation imposed by Beijing.

Hong Kong Court Convicts Man Over Slogan Chanted by Thousands
Tong Ying-kit, on July 6, 2020. (Source: Getty Images)

A Hong Kong court found an activist guilty of inciting secession for displaying a banned slogan that was chanted by tens of thousands of protesters, marking the first conviction under a national security law imposed by Beijing.

Tong Ying-kit was found guilty of a charge of incitement to secession and another of engaging in terrorist activities by three High Court judges selected from a panel chosen by Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam. The law carries tiered prison sentences that increase to as a long as life depending on the severity of the offense, although there was no precedent to shed light on how the courts would apply those penalties.

The waiter, who has been held without bail for more than a year, had pleaded not guilty over his actions at a protest in 2020 when he drove a motorcycle with a flag bearing the protest slogan “Liberate Hong Kong; revolution of our times” into a group of police officers. The incident occurred hours after the law was enacted and police declared that slogan banned.

Hong Kong Court Convicts Man Over Slogan Chanted by Thousands

The court said in a judgment posted online Tuesday that “such display of the words was capable of inciting others to commit secession,” meaning separating Hong Kong from mainland China. It added that by riding his vehicle into the officers, Tong had “a view to intimidating the public in order to pursue political agenda.”

The verdict is likely to exacerbate worries that Hong Kong courts will strictly interpret and enforce crimes detailed in a national security law that was drafted by mainland Chinese officials and imposed on the city with no local debate. Beijing handed down the legislation last year in the wake of large and often violent protests in the Asian financial hub two years ago.

The court’s ruling demonstrated that “people will be prosecuted in accordance with the draconian provisions of the NSL rather than under Hong Kong’s judicial system as inherited from the British,” said Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies and author of several books on the former British colony.

Hong Kong Court Convicts Man Over Slogan Chanted by Thousands

Officials in the city “will now try to control what can be said and what cannot be said,” Tsang added.

Some 138 people have been arrested under the legislation -- about three-fourths for speech-related incidents. That number includes much of the former pro-democracy opposition in the Legislative Council and figures such as former student leader Joshua Wong and Jimmy Lai, the 73-year-old media mogul whose pro-democracy newspaper was recently forced to close.

The Group of Seven nations said Beijing failed to meet the terms of its handover agreement with the U.K. by forcing the legislation on Hong Kong. In response, the U.S. has rolled back some special privileges granted to the city and sanctioned senior officials who oversee the territory.

The security law bars secession, subversion, terrorism and colluding with foreign forces, and provides for prison terms of up to life in jail. Like Tong, many of the people arrested under it have been detained without bail before their trials, which marks a departure from Hong Kong’s common law traditions and is similar to how the judicial system of mainland China works.

A hearing to determine whether any mitigating circumstances should be taken into account before Tong is sentenced will be held Thursday.

Hong Kong officials say the legislation targets only an “extremely small minority,” but human rights groups and foreign governments say it is being wielded to erode political freedoms. Tong was among several people arrested during protests against the law on July 1, last year -- just after it had been handed down without any input from local lawmakers or the public.

During the trial, one of the prosecution’s witnesses, Lau Chi-pang, a professor of Chinese history at Lingnan University, said the definitions of “liberate” and “revolution” established more than 1,000 years ago suggested a desire to overthrow the government.

Defense witnesses testified that the slogan had several meanings. Tong’s defense said in its closing argument that the slogan was “too vague” to incite secession.

Pro-democracy activist Nathan Law said in a statement that the verdicts violated the spirit of the rule of law. Ruling that the protest slogan could incite people to secession “is enforcing the concept of speech crime in Hong Kong,” he said.

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.