Hong Kong university student admits to violating national security law after using Telegram to incite secession

Engineering undergraduate Lui Sai-yu pleads guilty in exchange for prosecutors dropping other charges for possession of firearms and offensive weapons

Prosecutor says defendant co-administered Telegram platform, named ‘Channel of Anti-Communism and Hong Kong Independence’ to incite violence, disobedience

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A university student has pledged guilty to inciting secession by co-managing a Telegram channel which called for violence and civil disobedience. Photo: Warton Li

Published: 6:26pm, 27 Apr 2022Updated: 7:27pm, 27 Apr 2022

A university student has admitted to violating the national security law by co-managing a Telegram channel that called for Hong Kong’s independence and resistance against the Chinese Communist Party.

Engineering undergraduate Lui Sai-yu pleaded guilty on Wednesday to inciting secession before a district judge hand-picked by the city leader to adjudicate national security cases. In exchange for his admission, the prosecution dropped two other charges related to the possession of firearms and offensive weapons.

The 25-year-old student from Polytechnic University is the sixth person to be convicted under the legislation imposed by Beijing in June 2020, and the third to be found guilty of inciting secession, an offence punishable by up to seven years in jail when heard before a judge of the District Court.

Lui has been incarcerated since his arrest in September 2020, after officers from the police’s national security unit raided his residence in Fanling and seized a pepper ball launcher, two military knives, an extendable baton as well as protective equipment commonly used by protesters during the social unrest in 2019.

Initial investigations had focused on Lui’s sale of weapons through social media, but officers later turned their attention to his Telegram channel, which contained over a thousand provocative messages and illustrations.