Hong Kong police officers arrested two people on Saturday beneath the brand new nationwide safety legislation, citing alleged “seditious” intent. The detainees embrace a 41-year-old man and a 28-year-old girl, who’re suspected of forging a suicide word of a deceased professor to allegedly incite hatred towards the Hong Kong and central (Chinese language) authorities.
In line with the police, the arrested girl was suspected of publishing a fraudulent suicide word purportedly written by a deceased professor from the Metropolis College of Hong Kong, which linked his loss of life to the dissatisfaction with Hong Kong’s political developments since 2019. The word additionally cited the Article 23 safety legislation laws handed in March 2024.
The preliminary investigation revealed that the deceased professor had sought assist for psychological well being points triggered by considerations and misery over bodily well being and work-related issues, in response to native media outlet ReNews. The college additionally issued a press release on Saturday, calling on the general public to be cautious about rumours on-line.
The opposite man was accused of inserting “memorial mild packing containers” in varied locations to “provoke hatred” in the direction of the Chinese language and Hong Kong governments.
The police arrested the suspects for allegedly contravening part 24 of the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance. Article 25 clarifies that the prosecution doesn’t must show that the defendant intends to incite third events to violence or public dysfunction, so long as there may be an intention to deliver hatred, contempt or disaffection towards the Chinese language and/or Hong Kong authorities.
The arrest on Saturday adopted a current conviction of the now-defunct on-line information outlet Stand Information, its former editor-in-chief, Chung Pui-kuen and the previous performing editor-in-chief, Patrick Lam. They had been discovered responsible of sedition on August 30, 2024 and will probably be dealing with as much as two years in jail. This case marked the primary such conviction of journalists in Hong Kong because the 1997 handover.
The conviction was based mostly on the now-repealed sedition offense beneath the Crimes Ordinance. The Hong Kong Courtroom of Ultimate Enchantment just lately allowed a problem, which argues that the prosecution should show a standard legislation intention to incite third events to violence or public dysfunction to ensure that the defendant to be discovered responsible of sedition.
Source / Picture: jurist.org
