Hong Kong protests: Telegram group operator jailed for nearly 5 years over incitement offences tied to 2019 clashes
- District Court also confiscates HK$1.64 million which insurance agent Siu Cheung-lung earned through managing the messaging app channel ‘The Cheating Master’
- Defendant, 33, had given bomb-making instructions to subscribers of his channel, urged them to attack police officers
The administrator of a Telegram group has been jailed for nearly five years after he admitted abetting attacks on Hong Kong police officers and instigating a violent demonstration during the 2019 social unrest.
The District Court on Monday also confiscated HK$1.64 million (US$210,230) which the defendant, insurance agent Siu Cheung-lung, earned through managing the channel “The Cheating Master” between November 3, 2019 and March 27 last year.
Siu, 33, pleaded guilty last Monday to nine incitement charges over 17 posts he made between November 3 and 19, 2019, a period that featured some of the most violent clashes between protesters and police.
Those messages were among 1,197 provocative posts published on the channel with 21,862 subscribers, some of whom were also persuaded by Siu to buy his hygiene products or provide him with financial support after he made multiple claims about running out of cash.
Judge Anthony Kwok Kai-on rejected the defence’s assertion that the channel had played a relatively minor role in the social unrest. Instead, he found the group had exerted “widespread and substantial” influence and intensified conflicts in a society which had already become highly polarised during the protests.
Siu had previously pleaded guilty to three counts each of incitement of arson and public nuisance as well as one count each of inciting others to riot, cause grievous bodily harm and administer poison or other destructive or noxious substances.
Prosecutors agreed to drop a money-laundering count arising from the HK$1.64 million on condition that he plead guilty to the incitement charges and surrender the ill-gotten gains to the government.
Hong Kong man pleads guilty to 9 incitement charges tied to 2019 protest violence
Eight of the 17 posts in question were aimed at abetting a riot at Chinese University (CUHK) on November 12, when Siu called on protesters to invade the school’s laboratories to make bombs that could be used to ambush police officers, the court was told.
In other messages, the defendant gave out instructions for making bombs using petrol, thermites and chlorine gas, called for obstruction of railways, and urged protesters to attack those who held opposing political views with pipes and corrosives.
Under caution, Siu confessed he had written the posts with the aim of spreading dissatisfaction against police and “blue ribbons” – a slang term referring to people who support the government and the force – and to create a following that would buy his hygiene products.
The defence had urged the court to order concurrent sentences for all charges, but Kwok refused, citing the differences in the nature of the offences being encouraged.
Hong Kong judge jails man for 7 months over anti-police Facebook comment
Kwok found the posts which offered support to the violence at CUHK particularly deplorable, as they were aimed at inciting a specific crime and had “undoubtedly added fuel to the fire”.
Proposed attacks on police officers and pro-government residents had put them under serious risk of injury and widened the political chasm in the community, Kwok said.
He jailed Siu for four to 44 months on each count, before ordering partially consecutive sentences for an overall jail term of 58 months.
The judge further ordered the defendant to surrender the HK$1.64 million in his HSBC account to the government in six months’ time, failing which he could be jailed an extra 1½ years.
