Since the new national security law was introduced, three people have ended up behind bars in two days. The latest was a Hong Kong man who was jailed on Friday for posting “seditious” messages on social media.
He was sentenced to 14 months in prison after pleading guilty to posting 239 messages deemed “seditious” on Facebook, X and YouTube, according to the West Kowloon court ruling.
The 58-year-old job seeker “intended to lead others to hatred and contempt for the Hong Kong government and law enforcement, leading to social rift and division,” the court’s chief magistrate, Victor So, wrote in the judgment.
The defense argued that some of his accounts had fewer than 20 followers, and that the 50-year-old was seeking validation from others rather than inciting anyone to sedition.
On Thursday, two other Hong Kong men, aged 27 and 29, were sentenced to 14 and 10 months in prison for wearing T-shirts that read “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times” or writing slogans such as “Self-reliant nation, independent Hong Kong” on bus seats.
One of them had already served a three-month prison sentence in January for carrying and keeping in his luggage clothes and flags bearing protest slogans.
Hong Kong’s new national security law, passed in March and known as Article 23, increased the maximum prison sentence for sedition from two to seven years.
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