District Courtroom Choose Stanley Chan dominated in October that former supply man Ma Chun-man, 31, was responsible of inciting secession as a result of slogans he chanted, placards he held and the statements he made to media.
“The defendant was incited by some politician and he finally turned an instigator himself,” Chan stated, with out naming the politician. “On this context, it is onerous to ensure there will not be different Ma Chun-mans.”
Ma had pleaded not responsible and didn’t testify.
Certainly one of his attorneys, Chris Ng, instructed reporters he was unsure whether or not Ma would attraction.
“I don’t really feel any remorse,” Ma wrote in a letter to the decide, which he signed together with his nickname.
“On my highway to democracy and freedom, I am unable to afford to be a coward,” he stated within the letter, a part of which was learn out in courtroom earlier than he was sentenced to 5 years and 9 months in jail.
The regulation punishes something China sees as subversion, secession, terrorism and collusion with international forces with as much as life in jail and has been broadly criticized as a instrument to purge political opponents and crush particular person freedoms.
Beijing maintains rule of regulation, and all rights and freedoms stay intact and says the laws was wanted to plug loopholes in nationwide safety and finish the often-violent unrest, which it says was fomented by international forces.
Ma’s conviction was the second underneath the regulation.
Within the first, former waiter Tong Ying-kit, was jailed for 9 years. He had ridden a motorbike into a bunch of policemen, displaying the slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our occasions,” which the courtroom dominated was “able to inciting secession”.
Tong, who was additionally convicted of terrorism for allegedly utilizing his motorbike as a weapon, is interesting.
In Ma’s case, the courtroom was proven movies of him chanting “Hong Kong Independence, the one method out”. A pocket book titled “Captain America’s Diary of Resistance” was additionally seized.
One other protection lawyer, Edwin Choy, referred to as for lenience earlier than the sentencing, saying Ma’s slogans and chants had been empty phrases with no nice influence. Ma didn’t commit violent acts and was not somebody who would promote violence, Choy stated.
Greater than 100 individuals, together with lots of the metropolis’s most distinguished opposition politicians and activists, have been charged underneath the safety regulation. Most have been denied bail.
