A 27-year-old man from Hong Kong, Chu Kai-pong, has been sentenced to 14 months in prison for wearing a T-shirt and a mask with protest slogans deemed “seditious,” in violation of the city’s strict national security law. This marks the first conviction under this new legislation, also known as Article 23. The ruling was delivered on Thursday at the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts, where Chu had previously pleaded guilty to one count of “acts with seditious intent” earlier this week. This offense can carry a penalty of up to 10 years in prison under the new provisions.
Chu was arrested on June 12, a date that marks the fifth anniversary of the significant pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong in 2019. He was wearing a T-shirt that read “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times” and a yellow mask emblazoned with the acronym “FDNOL,” which stands for the pro-democracy slogan “five demands, not one less.”
The 2019 protest movement was the most organized challenge to Hong Kong’s government since the former British colony was placed under Chinese rule in 1997. The movement lost momentum due to extensive arrests, the exile of pro-democracy activists, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the implementation of a previous national security law by China in 2020.
During the court proceedings, Chief Magistrate Victor So, appointed by the government to handle national security cases, referenced the 2019 protests, stating that Chu “exploited a symbolic day in order to revive the ideas behind the unrest.” In January, Chu was sentenced to three months in prison for wearing a similar T-shirt at the airport and possessing materials deemed seditious. The judge noted that Chu’s “subsequent actions” demonstrated that “the deterrent effect of his previous sentence was insufficient.”
The sedition law was established under British colonial rule, which ended in 1997, but was rarely used until Hong Kong authorities revitalized it in 2020 following the protests. In mid-2020, China enacted a national security law to suppress further dissent. The new national security law, known as the “Safeguarding National Security Ordinance” or Article 23, came into effect in March and expands the prohibition against sedition to include calls for hatred against China’s Communist leadership, increasing the penalty to a maximum of 10 years in prison if sedition is conducted in collusion with an “external force.”
Critics, including Western nations such as the United States, argue that Article 23 will lead to further restrictions on freedoms and suppression of dissent in Hong Kong, which was previously regarded as one of the freest areas in China. To date, 303 individuals have been arrested under the two security laws, of which 176 have been charged, and 160 have been convicted.