A Portuguese citizen pleaded guilty Tuesday to incitement to subversion in a Hong Kong court, which rejected a defense request that Joseph John be released on bail.
The man, also known as Wong Kin Chung, accepted the charge, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, in session at the Wanchai District Court.
The defense lawyer submitted a request for the Portuguese, detained since the end of October, to be released on bail worth 26,000 Hong Kong dollars (about three thousand euros).
However, Judge Stanley Chan Kwong-chi rejected the request, considering that the accused continues to represent a danger to China’s national security, and postponed the start of the trial for the fourth time.
Stanley Chan is one of the judges appointed by the Hong Kong government to handle cases related to the national security law, enacted in 2020 by Beijing to crack down on dissent in the semi-autonomous Chinese region.
This law created the crime of incitement to subversion, with a minimum sentence of five years in prison and a maximum of 10 years, which on March 9 was added by the Public Ministry to the charge against Joseph John.
The Portuguese was initially accused of the crime of sedition, under another law, from the British colonial era, whose maximum penalty is two years in prison.
According to the indictment, Joseph John was an administrator of the Hong Kong Independence Party’s Facebook profile. The organization was founded in the UK in 2015, but its political party status was revoked by the British Electoral Commission in 2018.
The suspect, an employee of the Royal College of Music in the United Kingdom, will have used the profile to, since September 2019, “launch a campaign to raise funds for military expenses, send petitions to foreign government pages and appeal for support.” of foreign troops.
The man allegedly appealed to London to claim that China was “illegally occupying” Hong Kong, as well as asking the UK and US to send troops to the former British colony, which passed control to Beijing in 1997.
The session on Tuesday was attended by the Consul General of Portugal in Macao and Hong Kong, Alexandre Leitão, and a representative of the European Union Delegation in Hong Kong.
The defendant, born in Hong Kong and with permanent resident status in the Chinese special administrative region, will have requested a safe-conduct to travel within China.
China, whose Chinese legal system does not recognize dual nationality, only grants the laissez-passer to ethnic Chinese and views the document as recognition of Chinese nationality.
Source: TSF
