Five Hong Kong speech therapists were yesterday sentenced to 19 months in jail for conspiracy to publish seditious children’s books, featuring cartoons of sheep and wolves that prosecutors had deemed anti-government.
The five were convicted on Wednesday under a colonial-era sedition law in a case denounced by rights campaigners as a “brazen act of repression,” which the Hong Kong government has rejected.
The defendants, who had pleaded not guilty, were accused of publishing three books featuring cartoons of sheep fighting against wolves.
Photo: Reuters
District Court Judge Kwok Wai Kin (郭偉健) said the defendants had to be punished “not because of the publication or the words, but because of their harm or the risk of harm to the minds of children,” saying the works sowed seeds of “instability.”
“What the defendants have done to the children aged 4 and above was in fact a brainwashing exercise with a view to guiding the very young children to accept their views and values,” Kwok said.
Lorie Lai (黎雯齡), Melody Yeung (楊逸意), Sidney Ng (伍巧怡), Samuel Chan (陳源森) and Marco Fong (方梓皓), aged 26 to 29, were convicted by Kwok, who was handpicked by Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee (李家超) to try national security cases.
The books referred to events including the city’s mass pro-democracy protests in 2019 and the case of 12 democracy protesters who attempted to flee to Taiwan by speedboat in 2020 and were captured by the Chinese coast guard.
In one book, wolves want to occupy a village and eat the sheep, who in turn fight back.
It is the first time a seditious publications case has gone to trial since the 2019 protests and the imposition of the Hong Kong National Security Law imposed by Beijing in 2020, which officials said was vital to restore stability.
One of the group’s lawyers said that the five could be out in 31 days once deductions were made, including the 13 months they spent in jail awaiting trial.
Three of them struck a defiant tone during sentencing, with Yeung telling the court she did not regret her choices and hopes to always stand on the side of the sheep.
“My only regret is I couldn’t publish more picture books before getting arrested,” she said.
Amnesty International, which exited Hong Kong because of the National Security Law, described the convictions as “an absurd example of unrelenting repression.”
Additional reporting by AFP
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