A Hong Kong court jailed the five speech therapists to nearly two years (19 months) in prison on Saturday, only days after they were convicted for publishing ‘seditious’ books. The five speech therapists have reportedly been imprisoned for more than a year. As a result, they should be eligible for early release. However, because the trial has attracted international attention, analysts fear that authorities may seek to put the gang in jail for the whole term in order to send a message.
According to WION, the industry organization General Union of Hong Kong Speech Therapists released articles in 2020 and 2021 concerning a ‘sheep population’ that had been bullied and mistreated. According to the prosecutors, the stories were allegories that ‘indoctrinated’ children to value independence and despise Beijing.
‘Seditious purpose arises not just from the words, but from the words with the forbidden consequences intended to result in the minds of minors,’ District Judge Kwok Wai-kin stated when declaring the group guilty of sedition. After China enacted the extremely contentious National Security Law (NSL) for Hong Kong in 2020, amid widespread demonstrations, it was widely assumed that free expression would be curtailed in the former British territory.
The bill, which is already law in Hong Kong, aims to penalise secession, sedition, and coordination with foreign forces. When the bill was enacted despite months of protests by ordinary Hong Kong residents, pro-democracy campaigners called it ‘the end of the Hong Kong that the world knew previously’.
Similarly to the speech therapists, Jimmy Lai, a 74-year-old media entrepreneur and founder of the pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily, lost a lawsuit last week to prevent national security officials from searching his cell phones for journalistic data, setting a precedent that could be applied to other cases. Lai’s request for a jury trial was also denied.
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