Remanded Hong Kong activist convicted over unapproved prison complaint letter
- Court finds Owen Chow guilty of giving unauthorised complaint letter about prison conditions to lawyer to send to watchdog
West Kowloon Court on Monday found Owen Chow Ka-shing guilty of carrying an unauthorised article out of prison after he gave his lawyer a letter for the Office of the Ombudsman, a watchdog that focuses on public administration concerns.
In the letter, he accused correctional services officers of barring him from receiving two books on Buddhism and tearing off their covers when they were returned to the sender.
Chow’s lawyer, Phyllis Woo Wing-see, was also convicted on the same charge for deliberately taking away the document without the permission of prison authorities.
Principal Magistrate Ivy Chui Yee-mei found it reasonable for prison authorities to impose stringent restrictions on correspondence between detainees and the outside world so that good order could be maintained.
She said that any written complaint against the Correctional Services Department must first be screened and approved by prison officers before it could be filed to the ombudsman’s office.