HONG KONG - Hong Kong student Tony Chung Hon-lam was sentenced to four months in prison on Tuesday for desecrating the Chinese national flag and taking part in an unlawful assembly in May 2019 over the now-withdrawn extradition bill.
The magistrate said that the impact of the crime was far-reaching and that potential violence that Tony Chung could have provoked could not be ignored, although the incident was short-lived and did not have many participants
Magistrate Peony Wong Nga-yan of the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts ruled that the 19-year-old had deliberately undermined the dignity of the national flag by snatching it with two unidentified people outside the Legislative Council Complex and throwing it into the air after breaking the flagpole.
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The magistrate also found that Chung was an active participant in the illegal assembly.
The magistrate said that the impact of the crime was far-reaching and that potential violence that he could have provoked could not be ignored, although the incident was short-lived and did not have many participants.
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Chung, a former leader of separatist group Studentlocalism, was charged in October with secession under the National Security Law. He has been in custody since then after being denied bail by a West Kowloon Court for breaching bail conditions and being suspected of other offenses, including conspiring to publish seditious materials and money laundering. The case was adjourned to Jan 7.
