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HONG KONG: A Hong Kong teenager was ordered to spend four months in prison on Tuesday (December 29) for insulting China’s national flag and an illegal gathering as Beijing increasingly targets prominent activists from the financial center.
Tony Chung, a 19-year-old who ran a now-dissolved pro-democracy group, was convicted earlier this month of throwing the Chinese flag to the ground during skirmishes in front of the Hong Kong legislature in May 2019.
While serving his sentence, Chung will await a trial on a “secession” charge, which could lead to life in prison under the 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, often violent protests in favor of democracy last year.
He was sentenced to three months each for insulting the national flag and illegal gathering, and told to serve four months behind bars.
READ: Timeline: The Impact of National Security Law in Hong Kong
The teen also faces separate charges of money laundering and conspiracy to post seditious content.
Chung was arrested by plainclothes policemen outside the US consulate in late October and has been in pre-trial detention ever since.
It has been speculated that the authorities moved on Chung because he was hoping to seek asylum at the US consulate in Hong Kong.
BELL
A growing number of pro-democracy activists across the political spectrum have fled Hong Kong since Beijing stepped up its crackdown on the city’s protests against the Chinese government.
Under the security law, dissident speech in lieu of acts can be alleged to constitute vague but serious crimes, such as “subversion” and “collusion with foreign forces”.
READ: Hong Kong National Security Law: 5 Key Facts You Need to Know
The law has also broken down the legal firewall between Hong Kong’s internationally recognized common law judiciary and the Party-controlled and opaque justice system in mainland China by allowing suspects to be extradited across the border to stand trial.
Last Sunday, China’s state television CGTN reported that Hong Kong police had included 30 people not currently in Hong Kong on its wanted list on suspicion of violating national security law, including self-exiled activists Ted. Hui and Baggio Leung.
Prominent activists remaining in Hong Kong have been jailed such as Joshua Wong and Agnes Chow or face frequent arrests and multiple charges.
Jimmy Lai, a pro-democracy media mogul who is also charged with the national security law, has been placed under house arrest and stripped of his public speech, including his Twitter account, when the Hong Kong High Court granted him bail last week.
However, the decision drew serious criticism from China, which threatened to extradite Lai to the mainland for trial.
