Court sentences activist to 4 months imprisonment for insulting Chinese flag

A West Kowloon Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday sentenced a Hong Kong student activist, Tony Chung, Hon-lam to four months imprisonment for insulting the Chinese flag and taking part in an unauthorised protest in 2019.

The 19-year-old former convenor of the pro-independence group Student localism was already awaiting trial under the national security law, imposed on Hong Kong in June.

Chung was arrested by national security agents in October during an unsuccessful bid to claim asylum at the city’s U.S. consulate general and later charged with undermining national unification and conspiring to publish seditious materials.

Denied bail, he was remanded in custody until his court hearing for the national security offence on Jan. 7, citing flight risk.

On Dec. 11, Chung was convicted of desecrating the Chinese flag during an unlawful demonstration in May 2019, when he tore down the flag outside government headquarters and flung it into the air.

The offence carried a maximum possible sentence of four years.