Five Jailed in Hongkong for Sowing Sedition in Young Minds

HONGKONG: Free Speech in China is like a mirage because according to the 1982 constitution of China Freedom of speech is guaranteed but the Chinese government often uses the "subversion of state power" and "protection of state secrets" clauses in their law system to imprison those who criticize the government.

The same thing happened when five speech therapists were put behind the bar for 19 months after they published a series of children's books that the court said instilled a hatred of the government in the young minds. 

This sentence extends a government crackdown on political dissent that began during mass protests in 2019. 

The defendants namely Man-ling Lai, Melody Yeung, Sidney Ng, Samuel Chan, and Tsz-ho Fong — who were the leaders of a speech therapists' union behind the books, have been in jail for more than a year. Because of the time served, their lawyers said they were likely to be released soon. 

The Hong Kong police's national security department arrested them last year, accusing them of violating a colonial-era law on seditious publications.

The sentence comes after them being in jail for more than a year which says a lot about the justice system in China. 

Prosecutors said that the defendants' series of three books, titled "Sheep Village," about a flock of sheep resisting the tyrannical rule of a wolf pack, could "weaken" Beijing's sovereignty over Hong Kong by portraying the Chinese government as authoritarian.

In another book, the sheep organize to push the wolves, portrayed as littering and dangerous, out of their village. That book was released in early 2020 when Hong Kong's opposition camp was lobbying the government to close the border with mainland China to control the spread of the coronavirus.

A court convicted the five defendants under the 1938 sedition law, which has not been used often in recent decades, on a joint count of "conspiracy to print, publish, distribute, display and/or reproduce seditious publications." 

Also Read: Google Working On New Features For Video Conferencing On Chromebooks

Also Watch: