Responding to the 14-month prison sentence handed to Hong Kong man Chu Kai-pong for wearing a \u201cseditious\u201d T-shirt and mask, Amnesty International\u2019s China Director Sarah Brooks said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cJust when you thought the human rights situation in Hong Kong couldn\u2019t get any bleaker, a man is condemned to more than a year in prison just because of the clothing he chose to wear. This is a blatant attack on the right to freedom of expression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe conviction and sentencing of Chu Kai-pong over his choice of clothing also highlights the sheer malice of Hong Kong\u2019s new Article 23 law, which expands the government\u2019s powers to punish so-called \u2018seditious\u2019 acts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cChu Kai-pong is the first person convicted under this legislation, but its vague wording, vast scope and repressive nature leaves Hong Kongers fearing that he will not be the last. We once again urge the Hong Kong authorities to repeal this law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe government must also end its use of \u2018sedition\u2019 laws to crack down on dissent under the pretext of protecting \u2018national security\u2019. Chu Kai-pong has committed no internationally recognized crime and he must be released immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chu Kai-pong was today sentenced to one year and two months in jail for \u201cdoing with a seditious intention an act or acts that had a seditious intention\u201d under section 24 of the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance (SNSO), the new national security legislation enacted in March 2024 based on Article 23 of the city\u2019s Basic Law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He is the first person charged, convicted and sentenced under the SNSO. He was arrested on 12 June 2024, the anniversary of the 2019 anti-extradition protests, for wearing a T-shirt bearing the 2019 protest slogan, \u201cLiberate Hong Kong, Revolution of Our Times\u201d, and a yellow mask printed with the letters \u201cFDNOL\u201d, the abbreviation of another protest slogan, \u201cFive Demands, Not One Less\u201d. He has already been detained for more than 3 months and denied bail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He was also charged with two other offences \u2013 loitering and failure to produce proof of identity for inspection \u2013 but these were dropped after he pleaded guilty to the sedition charge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to section 24 of the SNSO, a person convicted of sedition can be imprisoned for seven years. If the sedition is conducted in collusion with an \u201cexternal force\u201d, the maximum sentence rises to 10 years. The offence was previously punishable by up to two years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hong Kong\u2019s Legislative Council voted unanimously on 19 March 2024 to pass the SNSO under Article 23 of the Basic Law, Hong Kong\u2019s mini-constitution. The SNSO increases penalties for acts relating to sedition and contains many troubling provisions, such as the vague and broadly worded crime of \u201cexternal interference\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Amnesty International\u2019s records, 12 people have been arrested for sedition \u2013 and three charged \u2013 under the SNSO since its enactment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Responding to the 14-month prison sentence handed to Hong Kong man Chu Kai-pong for wearing a \u201cseditious\u201d T-shirt and mask, Amnesty International\u2019s China Director Sarah Brooks said: \u201cJust when you thought the human rights situation in Hong Kong couldn\u2019t get any bleaker, a man is condemned to more than a year in prison just because […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":26579,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-title":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-description":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-image":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-image-id":0,"_yoast_wpseo_twitter-title":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-description":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-image":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-image-id":0,"recipients":"","recipients_refresh":"","recipients_refreshed":"","_hero_title":"","_hero_content":"","_hero_cta_text":"","_hero_cta_link":"","_hero_alignment":"","_hero_background":"","_hero_size":"","_hero_show":"","_hero_type":"","_hero_embed":"","_hero_video_id":0,"_hero_hide_image_caption":true,"_hero_hide_image_copyright":false,"_nav_style":"","_disable_share_icons":false,"_disable_sidebar":false,"_display_author_info":false,"_hide_featured_image":false,"_hide_featured_image_caption":true,"_maximize_post_content":false,"_reduce_content_width":false,"_sidebar_id":0,"_stretch_thumbnail":false,"byline_context":"","byline_entity":"","byline_is_author":false,"disable_related_content":false,"download_id":0,"download_text":"","show_published_date":true,"show_updated_date":true,"term_slider":"","amnesty_index_number":"","document_ref":"","amnesty_updated":"","amnesty_umbraco_data":"","footnotes":""},"category":[1711],"location":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-26558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-freedom-of-expression"],"datePosted":"September 19, 2024","mlpRelationships":{"1":26558,"5":27067},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category?post=26558"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=26558"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=26558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}