Hong Kong students jailed for ‘glorifying’ attack on police

Police stood guard in Hong Kong’s shopping district of Causeway Bay near the site where a man stabbed a police officer in the back before killing himself on July 1, 2021 – Copyright AFP Anthony WALLACE

Four former student leaders of a Hong Kong university were jailed for two years Monday for inciting others to wound police after they “glorified” a knife attack on an officer, said a judge.

On July 1, 2021, a man stabbed and wounded a police officer in a busy shopping district before taking his own life in what authorities called an act of “domestic terrorism”.

Several days later, a student union council at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) — including the chairman and three members — passed a motion to mourn the attacker, and to “appreciate his sacrifice for Hong Kong”. 

The four students — Kinson Cheung, Kwok Wing-ho, Chris Todorovski and Yung Chung-hei — were initially charged with “inciting terrorism” under the sweeping national security law Beijing imposed on the financial hub after the 2019 protests.

The former students, now aged 21 and 22, pleaded guilty to the alternative charge of “inciting others to wound police officers” — which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison — and district judge Adriana Tse Ching sentenced them to 24 months in jail. 

She said the group had not only openly defied laws and targeted police officers, but also used the student union council as a platform to “glorify the incident”. 

“The Defendants were abusing their powers as members of the Executive Committee,” said the judgement. 

The fact that their meeting attracted widespread local and international news coverage was also an aggravating factor, according to the judge. 

During the council meeting — broadcast live on the social media accounts of campus media — the students expressed respect for Leung’s act and criticised the government’s characterisation of it as terrorism.  

Defendant Kwok Wing-ho — who was then HKU’s student union president and had called the attacker a “martyr” — told the court that the public sympathised with Leung after the police crackdown on the 2019 protests.

“The clashes between police and civilians have brought Hong Kong indelible trauma,” Kwok wrote in his mitigation letter to the court. 

“Although society has resumed peacefulness, the trauma has not healed… I can’t betray my conscience to say that after two years I have changed from resenting the police to supporting them.”