A teenager in Hong Kong was sentenced to four months in prison for insulting China’s national flag and its illegal assembly, as Beijing is targeting more and more prominent financial center activists.
Tony Chung, 19, who led a now-dissolved pro-democracy group, was convicted this month for throwing the Chinese flag to the ground during fights outside the Hong Kong legislature in May 2019.
While serving his sentence, Chung expects to be tried for secession, which could lead to life imprisonment, according to the draconian national security law that Beijing imposed on Hong Kong on June 30.
Chung is the first public political figure to be prosecuted under the new security law, which Beijing described as a “sword” to return “order and stability” to the financial center after seven months of massive and often violent protests for democracy in the world. last year.
He was sentenced to three months each for insulting the national flag and the illegal assembly, and sentenced to four months behind bars. The teenager also faces separate charges of money laundering and conspiracy to publish seditious content.
Chung was arrested by plainclothes police outside the US consulate in October and has been in custody ever since.
It was speculated that the authorities detained Chung because he hoped to apply for asylum at the US consulate in Hong Kong.
An increasing number of pro-democracy activists across the political spectrum have fled Hong Kong since Beijing stepped up its crackdown on protests against China’s authoritarian regime.
According to the security law, dissident speeches instead of acts can be accused of vague but serious offenses, such as “subversion” and “collusion with foreign forces”.
The law also broke down the legal barrier between Hong Kong’s internationally recognized common law judiciary and the opaque party-controlled justice system in mainland China, allowing the extradition of suspects across the border for trial.
Last Sunday, Chinese state TV CGTN reported that Hong Kong police had placed 30 people outside Hong Kong on their wanted list for suspected violations of national security law, including self-exiled activists Ted Hui and Baggio Leung.
Prominent activists who remained in Hong Kong have been arrested – including Joshua Wong and Agnes Chow – or face frequent arrests and various charges.
Jimmy Lai, a pro-democracy media mogul, was also charged under national security law. Last week, the Hong Kong high court gave him bail, but placed him under house arrest. He also ordered him to hand over all travel documents and prohibited him from speaking to the press, making public statements, using social media, meeting with foreign officials and “conspiring with foreign forces”.
The decision provoked strong criticism from China, which threatened to extradite Lai for trial on the continent.