A Hong Kong court on Friday sentenced a student to two months imprisonment for sedition over pro-independence social media posts she published while studying in Japan.
Chief Magistrate Victor So sentenced the student to 2 months in jail after her guilty plea, saying deterrent sentencing was needed because “ingorant people would be incited subtly”. The defense had earlier disputed whether the magistrate’s court had extraterritorial jurisdiction over the posts she published aboard, but they abandoned the dispute as she didn’t remove the content.
Sedition is punishable by a maximum jail term of two years upon conviction. It is not among the offences criminalised by the Beijing-imposed national security law, but it has been ruled by the Court of Final Appeal as an act that can endanger national security.