Five Hong Kong speech therapists convicted of sedition over children’s books about wolves and sheep
The charges revolve around a picture book that tells the story of a village of sheep fending off a pack of wolves invading their home – a story government prosecutors allege is intended to incite contempt for the government. local authorities and the central government of China in Beijing.
In a ruling on Wednesday, a judge from the Hong Kong District Court sided with the prosecution, expressing his view that the images were correlated with events in the city and found that the the author intends to “bring hatred, contempt, or incite discontent” against local and central government, or both.
“By identifying the (People’s Republic of China) government as wolves… the children will be led to believe that (the PRC government) is coming to Hong Kong with the evil intention of taking it away. their homes and ruining their happy lives, judge Kwok Wai Kin wrote in a 67-page document giving his thoughts on the ruling.
“The publishers of the book clearly refuse to recognize that (China) has continued to exercise sovereignty over (Hong Kong),” Kwok wrote in his decision, referring to the handover of Hong Kong. , a former British colony, was ruled by China in 1997.
Those protests, sparked in response to a proposed bill that could put Hong Kongers on trial for cross-border crimes, have morphed into a larger pro-democracy movement that also involves concerns the widespread concern about Beijing’s growing influence in the semi-autonomous city.
The defendants’ defense, all of whom are executive board members of the General Union of Speech and Language Therapists of Hong Kong, argued that the charges against them were unconstitutional, as they were inconsistent with the law. Their freedom of speech is protected under Hong Kong. law.
But Kwok, who is also one of the few judges selected by city leaders to hear cases involving national security, has upended that challenge, saying the restrictions are limited instead. freedom of speech is necessary to protect national security. and public order.
In a document stating the reasons for the guilty verdict, Kwok countered that the books were mere fables promoting universal values, another argument made by the defense, pointing to the preface in One of the books deals with the “anti-rule movement” in 2019 and the “One country, two systems” mechanism governing Hong Kong’s relationship with the mainland.
According to public broadcaster RTHK, a sentencing will be held on Saturday which, according to public broadcaster RTHK, could see the defendants – who have been denied bail since their arrest in July. 2021 – sentenced to two years in prison. Lorie Lai, Melody Yeung, Sidney Ng, Samuel Chan and Marco Fong, ages 25 to 28, all pleaded not guilty.
The ruling was met with fierce opposition from rights defenders. Human Rights Watch in a statement accused the Hong Kong government of using “very broad” seduction laws “to punish juvenile speech crimes.”
“Hong Kongers have read about the unreasonable prosecution of people in mainland China for writing political allegories,” said Maya Wang, senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch. but this is happening now in Hong Kong.” “Hong Kong authorities should reverse the severe decline in freedoms and quash the convictions of five children’s book authors.”
In a reply, the government said the use of the law “is not for the purpose of silently expressing any opinion but merely a genuine criticism against the government based on objective facts. ”
The law, part of the 1938 Crime Ordinance unused for decades, was revived with Beijing’s enactment of the National Security Law for Hong Kong in 2020, aimed at secession, overthrowing fall, collusion with foreign forces and terrorist activities – with a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Last year, a court ruled that parts of the sedation law that originally referred to the monarch could be converted to mean references to the central government or the Hong Kong government. A crime carries a maximum sentence of two years.