A Hong Kong teenager has been ordered to spend four months in jail for insulting China’s national flag and illegal assembly, as Beijing increasingly targets prominent protesters from the masses. financial center.
Tony Chung, 19, who led a now-defunct pro-democracy group, was convicted this month of throwing down the Chinese flag during scuffles outside Hong Kong legislatures in May 2019.
While serving his sentence, Chung is awaiting trial for a breach, which could lead to life imprisonment, according to Beijing’s disturbing national security law imposed on Hong Kong on June 30.
Chung is the first public politician to be accused under the new security law, which Beijing described as a “sword” to return “order and stability” to the financial hub after seven months of high-profile protests and frequent violence. against democracy last year.
He was sentenced to three months for insulting the national flag and the illegal assembly, and was asked to spend four months behind bars. The teenager also has different charges about washing money and publishing published content.
Chung was arrested by police plainclothes before the U.S. consulate in October and has since been remanded in custody.
Chung has been thought to have been arrested by the authorities because he hoped to seek asylum at the U.S. consulate in Hong Kong.
A growing number of campaigners for democracy across the political spectrum have fled Hong Kong since Beijing stopped protesting protests against China’s authoritarian rule.
Under security law, acts of dissent but serious crimes such as “subversion” and “prejudice by foreign forces” can be said to be replaced by dissenting language.
The law has also violated the legal firewall between Hong Kong’s internationally recognized common law judges and the obscure justice system, controlled by a party on mainland China by allowing suspects to cross the border for trial.
Last Sunday, China’s state-of-the-art CGTN TV reported that Hong Kong police had put 30 non-Hong Kong people on the wanted list on suspicion of violating national security law, citing including the self-proclaimed activists Ted Hui and Baggio Leung.
Well-known protesters left in Hong Kong have either been jailed – including Joshua Wong and Agnes Chow – or will be frequently arrested and charged several times.
Jimmy Lai, an anti-democracy media mogul, has been charged under national security law. Last week, a Hong Kong high court released him from prison but he arrested him. He also ordered compliance with all travel documents and prohibited him from speaking to the media, making public statements, using social media, meeting with foreign officials and “ collusion with foreign forces ”.
The ruling provoked heavy criticism from China, which threatened to take Lai to the mainland for trial.