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On Tuesday, 5 former college students of the Chinese language College of Hong Kong (CUHK) had been every sentenced to nearly 5 years in jail for his or her involvement in protests towards the Nationwide Safety Regulation in November 2019. One of many former college students remained courageously defiant even within the face of the significantly harsh sentences, which she interpreted as merely a method to suppress dissent. Whereas the costs weren’t levied on violations of the Nationwide Safety Regulation itself, current judicial rulings level to an more and more retroactive software of the regulation and a harsher use of present ones.
Selina Cheng on the Hong Kong Free Press described the prosecutions of the 5 former college students:
4 males – Lau Chun-yuk, Ko Chi-pan, Chan Lik-sik and Hui Yi-Chuen – obtained jail phrases of 4 years and 9 months, whereas one lady – Foo Hoi-ching – was sentenced to 4 years and 11 months in jail.
The 5 had been convicted earlier in September of collaborating in a riot on November 11, 2019 at CUHK close to its No. 2 Bridge – an overpass on the fringe of the campus in Sha Tin, overlooking the Tolo Freeway and MTR tracks.
[…] Aged between 20 and 23, the 5 defendants had been convicted of 1 rely of rioting and one rely of utilizing face protecting throughout an unlawful meeting. Two of the defendants had been additionally convicted of possession of offensive weapons or instruments for illegal functions. [Source]
The decide intentionally selected harsh sentences for the 5 former CUHK college students to be able to ship a message deterring others from contesting the legal guidelines. Brian Wong from the South China Morning Put up reported on the decide’s extreme and controversial ruling:
Tuesday’s ruling marked the second time a decide had handed down jail sentences over intense clashes between hardcore protesters and riot police that gripped the Sha Tin campus on the top of the anti-government unrest in November 2019.
Sentencing the 5 at West Kowloon Courtroom, Deputy Decide Kathie Cheung Package-yee mentioned the defendants will need to have chosen to stay on the scene both to participate within the violence or abet the prison acts of their comrades.
The shortage of proof over the defendants’ degree of involvement was no cause to cut back their jail sentences, she mentioned, as a result of all members in a riot shared the identical culpability no matter their roles in it. [Source]
Present state of HK’s prison justice system: “The shortage of proof over the defendants’ degree of involvement was no cause to cut back their jail sentences, [the judge] mentioned…” https://t.co/EJ6zF7bF6I
— Antony Dapiran (@antd) October 19, 2021
Foo Hoi-ching, the one lady among the many group of former CUHK college students sentenced, remained significantly defiant. Foo’s letter to the court docket, revealed in Chinese language at HK Function, was translated on Twitter by Lokman Tsui:
To begin with, this letter of plea shouldn’t be supposed to realize the mercy of the decide.
In asking for the background report, I truthfully don’t have any regrets for my actions, and I additionally don’t have anything to say to the decide in my plea, as a result of I don’t agree with the regulation itself, nor do I really feel I’ve accomplished something fallacious. Merely put, I don’t assume this can be a cheap sentence.
Within the eyes of some folks, “the regulation is the regulation, and when you break the regulation, it’s essential bear duty”. Others can also imagine that the court docket’s ruling proves that the protesters’ behaviour is fallacious, and their actions in useless. However I imagine that authority doesn’t equal correctness.
[…] Beneath a totalitarian regime, the regulation is just a cold however violent device of the authorities to regulate the folks, and the court docket shouldn’t be a spot of justice. In such a spot, solely consideration is being paid to social order on a floor degree, however the root trigger of what’s tearing the society aside is ignored. [Source]
This thread. Youths akin to this are #HongKong’s best. Their sacrifice is an indictment upon all these of us who prospered from this lovely metropolis of ours whilst we wholly or partly ignored the alarm bells that had been ringing left proper and centre… https://t.co/ZPLysVHCa8
— Kevin Yam 任建峰 (@kevinkfyam) October 19, 2021
Learn this translation throughout.
Respect this pupil’s articulate and compelling refusal to just accept a flawed regulation and defective justice.
And replicate on the truth that an almost 5 years’ sentence is almost 20% of her life. https://t.co/tsHqSZj9Vq— Sarah Brooks (@sarahmcneer) October 19, 2021
CUHK pupil convicted of rioting in @CUHKofficial : I’ve no regrets of my acts.
Miss Fu advised she disapproves the regulation, the authority is fallacious, and she or he did nothing fallacious in her mitigation letter to the court docket.
She was sentenced 4yrs 11monthshttps://t.co/rztBaXr0VJ pic.twitter.com/3plJaD82qA
— Galileo Cheng (@galileocheng) October 19, 2021
Whereas Hong Kong authorities initially tried to assuage protesters’ fears by repeatedly declaring that the brand new regulation wouldn’t be retroactive, its introduction has opened the door to retroactive prosecutions. Greg Torode from Reuters described the judicial developments that paved the way in which for extra expansive and retroactive software of the Nationwide Safety Regulation:
A number of teams, together with veteran protest organiser Civil Human Rights Entrance, are below investigation for acts that pre-date the safety regulation, based on statements by senior police and reviews in pro-Beijing media.
[…] Two paragraphs in current court docket judgements seem to clear the trail for safety probes into previous actions, they warn.
One February ruling within the Courtroom of Last Enchantment steered that the nationwide safety regulation’s reference to “acts endangering nationwide safety” included violations of older legal guidelines.
And a District Courtroom ruling in April famous that below the safety regulation, the older offence of sedition was now labeled as a extra severe crime, probably eradicating its earlier statute of limitations of six months. [Source]
Courtroom rulings free Hong Kong police to probe older offences below safety regulation
Police have launched investigations into acts that passed off 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 the NSL was imposed a yr in the past, regardless of assurances by the government that the regulation would not be retroactive.https://t.co/L8FiN0zFFP
— Combat For Freedom. Stand With Hong Kong. 重光團隊 (@Stand_with_HK) October 19, 2021
“The previous is the long run,” mentioned HKU prison regulation prof @snmyoung (and “the long run is historical past,” as @mashagessen has put it re: totalitarianism in Russia). https://t.co/rHkdgqg3pc
— Mary Hui (@maryhui) October 19, 2021
“[HK police say] rallies organised by the CHRF in recent times are suspected of violating the nationwide safety regulation. The group has not held any protests because the laws was carried out June 30 final yr. Authorities say the regulation shouldn’t be retroactive.” https://t.co/6vG8tErHIM
— Antony Dapiran (@antd) August 13, 2021
Eric Lai defined within the Diplomat how the Hong Kong authorities is fusing colonial-era sedition legal guidelines with the Nationwide Safety Regulation to increase censorship:
The usage of sedition legal guidelines additionally implies that Hong Kong society might be additional securitized by the combination of the brand new nationwide safety regulation with the various preexisting draconian legal guidelines. Whereas the departed colonial administration had shunned imposing the sedition regulation because the Nineteen Seventies, the brand new authorities of Hong Kong lastly gave up that self-restraint to resurrect this draconian regulation. In April 2021, Luo Huining, Beijing’s high consultant in Hong Kong, requested that the native authorities “strike down onerous resistance and regulate mushy resistance” by regulation.
It’s clear that Beijing shouldn’t be content material to depend on the brand new nationwide safety regulation to safeguard its energy in Hong Kong, but in addition will to make use of different authorized measures to manage opposition voices within the metropolis. The deployment of the sedition regulation works hand in hand with different colonial legal guidelines, such because the Societies Ordinance, which criminalizes unlicensed civil organizations, and the Training Ordinance, which empowers authorities bureaucrats to revoke the licenses of academics who focus on delicate political points with college students. Utilizing preexisting legal guidelines to silence dissenting opinions and censor publications is a cheap method to improve the nationwide safety regime with out attracting an excessive amount of consideration from overseas events, who would have sturdy reactions to the frequent use of the nationwide safety regulation. [Source]
Thanks @Diplomat_APAC for publishing my current reflections on Hong Kong’s authorized repression. As an alternative of utilizing the extra provocative nationwide safety regulation, Hong Kong can be turning to colonial-era ordinances to crack down on free speech. @GeorgetownCAL https://t.co/sl5Eq2JPxb
— Eric Yan-ho Lai 黎恩灝 (@laiyanhoeric) September 3, 2021
“The cheapening of the seriousness of terrorist acts & sedition offences, when improperly use them to justify quelling home dissent, limiting protests & curbing criticism by civil society & human rights defenders, is deeply troubling,” @UNHumanRights https://t.co/g6edxBEBMD
— Samuel Chu 朱牧民 (@samuelmchu) October 12, 2021
As we doc, the decision units a troubling precedent: it ignores worldwide regulation, worldwide human rights regulation, and comparative finest observe. As an alternative, the court docket depends on a collection of antiquated precedents to underpin its tenuous evaluation of the information of the case. (3/x)
— Tom Kellogg (@tom_kellogg) October 20, 2021
A number of occasions already level to retroactive software of the Nationwide Safety Regulation. In November 2020, authorities disqualified legislators on nationwide safety grounds, citing statements the lawmakers made earlier than the regulation was enacted. In June 2021, authorities arrested senior workers members of Apple Each day, citing articles they helped publish that allegedly violate the NSL, regardless of a lot of them being revealed earlier than the enactment of the regulation. Authorities additionally lately handed laws permitting the federal government to censor movies that had been beforehand accepted, with organizers of unauthorized screenings going through as much as three years in jail. Owen Churchill on the South China Morning Put up described one of many methods used for making use of the Nationwide Safety Regulation retroactively:
Authorized knowledgeable Michael Davis, creator of Making Hong Kong China: The Rollback of Human Rights and the Rule of Regulation, advised commissioners that authorities had been utilizing entities’ prior actions as a pretext for investigation.
“They have a look at the organisation’s observe document … and so they say: ‘Nicely all of the stuff you did earlier than the regulation was handed reveals what your what your views are, and … you continue to exist, so in impact we’re investigating you, and we’ll see what occurs,” mentioned Davis. “So these organisations know that there’s a approach that retroactivity sneaks within the again door.” [Source]
Alarming. Claudia Mo denied bail on the idea of the retroactive referencing of media appearances previous to the passage of the Nationwide Safety Regulation. https://t.co/fE3JyYwWsb
— Hong Kong Watch (@hk_watch) May 28, 2021
Folks Energy’s Tam Tak-chi has been arrested by #HongKong police for #nationalsecurity regulation violation, based on his FB. Officers searched his hse this am. Assistant advised @StandNewsHK the case includes remarks made Mar – Jul, earlier than NSL was enacted. Police briefing at 11:45. pic.twitter.com/Mtf1uJaRh5
— Frances Sit (@frances_sit) September 6, 2020
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