This July 12, 2012 photo shows Tuen Mun Magistrates' Courts in Hong Kong. (PHOTO / INFORMATION SERVICES DEPARTMENT, HKSAR GOVERNMENT)
HONG KONG - An apprentice barista was sentenced by the Tuen Mun Magistrates' Courts on Friday to 5-week imprisonment for burning the national flag after the government asked for a review of the community service punishment originally given to the offender.
Tang Chi-lok, 21, was originally sentenced to 240 hours of community service for trampling on and burning a national flag while taking part in a protest in Tuen Mun in September.
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Tang Chi-lok, 21, was originally sentenced to 240 hours of community service for trampling on and burning a national flag while taking part in a protest in Tuen Mun in September
Upon the prosecutor’s request for a review, Magistrate Kathie Cheung Kit-yee increased the penalty, taking into account more facts showing the severity of the case.
Previously, the court did not consider that national flags are government property, nor the fact that the offence was committed in the presence of dozens of people, Cheung said.
The court held that the defendant’s actions could have incited others to desecrate the national flag, and agreed that a deterrent sentence in the form of five-week immediate imprisonment was more appropriate.
Briefing the media about the case, Senior Inspector Wong Chi-man of Hong Kong Police Narcotics Bureau said that some Hong Kong people’s understanding of the rule of law has been skewed in recent years, believing that they could escape justice. Today’s case has proved that they were wrong, Wong said.
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According to the National Flag and National Emblem Ordinance, anyone who desecrates the national flag or national emblem by publicly and wilfully burning, mutilating, scrawling on, defiling or trampling on it commits an offence and is liable to a fine of HK$50,000 and three years in prison.
