Hong Kong protests: woman in doxxing case is first person found guilty under colonial-era sedition law since 1997 handover
- Hui Pui-yee convicted after pleading guilty to inciting violence and other criminal activities in 2019
- Hui was administrator of a Telegram channel and had been accused of spreading hate speech and publishing personal details of police and officials
A 26-year-old waitress has become the first person to be found guilty under the colonial-era sedition law since Hong Kong’s handover to China in 1997, after confessing to inciting violence and other criminal activities via a Telegram channel she managed during 2019’s anti-government protests.
The District Court convicted Hui Pui-yee of conspiracy to commit a seditious act on her own admission on Tuesday. She also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to incite others to commit arson, in exchange for prosecutors withdrawing three other charges of a similar nature.
Prosecutors had accused Hui of taking part in a seditious plot to “incite violence” or “counsel disobedience to law or to any lawful order” by spreading hate speech and encouraging doxxing and assault against people supporting the government and police on Telegram, a messaging app popular with protesters.
She was also accused of conspiring with others on the social media platform to disseminate information about the making of petrol bombs in a bid to provoke other users to destroy properties by fire.
The offences were said to have taken place between August 12 and November 28 in 2019, when Hui and two other unknown Telegram users co-administered a channel called “boy finds dad and mum”.
The court heard the channel, which had 60,068 subscribers on November 28 that year, had maliciously published the personal information of 1,574 people, including mainland Chinese and local government officials, lawmakers and police officers.
