Adam Ma Chun, a 31-year-old food delivery man, was charged with “advocating separatism.”
A court in the semi-autonomous region of Hong Kong sentenced to five years and nine months in prison a protester who, according to the sentence, “incited secession” during protests last year, local media reported on Thursday.
Adam Ma Chun, a 31-year-old food delivery man, was accused of “advocating separatism” 20 times between August 15 and November 22, 2020, using chants such as “Hong Kong’s independence is the only way” or “Hong Kongers, let’s build our country,” according to the South China Morning Post.
The condemned man was also known as “Captain America 2.0” for having worn the outfit of this super hero during the protests, a detail that also came up during the trial and was criticized by the judge, who said that the accused was looking under that disguise “the positive image that he could not achieve in his real life”.
The judge did not admit the explanations of Ma’s defense, who assured that the slogans chanted were not “sincere calls for independence” but simply a “test of the limits of the Hong Kong National Security Law”, a law that Beijing designed and imposed in the semi-autonomous territory after the wave of student protests of 2019 and which entered into force on June 30, 2020.
Ma’s lawyer explained to the judge that his client is a “lonely person” who sought “company” with other protesters during the protests and asked for a sentence of less than five years, which the magistrate rejected.
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This is the second prosecuted under the new National Security Law, after another court last summer sentenced Leon Tong Ying-kit to nine years in prison, who unlike Ma did use violence during his protest by attacking with his motorcycle to a group of police officers while waving a flag with the slogan of the 2019 anti-government protests: “Free Hong Kong. The Revolution of our days.”
The National Security Law provides penalties of up to life imprisonment for cases such as “secession”, “terrorism” or “collusion with foreign forces.” (I)
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