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Hong Kong jails man for 14 months in third sedition conviction under domestic security law
Au Kin-wai, 58, pleads guilty to ‘knowingly publishing publications that had a seditious intention’
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A Hong Kong court has sentenced a third person convicted of sedition under the domestic national security law to 14 months in prison, ruling he defied the nation’s sovereignty and instigated hatred towards officials with persistent calls for “dictators” Xi Jinping and John Lee Ka-chiu to step down.
Au Kin-wai, 58, pleaded guilty on Friday to “knowingly publishing publications that had a seditious intention” under the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance.
The court heard the jobless defendant posted 239 largely repetitive videos and images featuring anti-government slogans on three social media platforms between March 23 and June 19 this year.
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The slogans included statements suggesting peace would return to Hong Kong, Taiwan and the world if Chief Executive Lee, President Xi and the Communist Party gave up their powers.
Au called the party an “evil fascist regime” and a “metonym for lies”, citing its founder Mao Zedong in saying: “Revolution is no crime, to rebel is justified.”
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Other remarks took aim at the city’s police force and slammed “rogue cops” for “demonic acts”.
The accused also made an apparent reference to late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, calling him a “butcher” who slaughtered people during the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, but a police case summary refrained from drawing inferences to the statement’s intention.
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