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Activist Koo Sze-yiu jailed for 9 months over sedition after planned protest using coffin and ‘hell money’

  • Koo Sze-yiu’s public display was intended to excite disaffection with new administrative order and foster hatred towards government, magistrate finds
  • The 78-year-old is first person to be convicted twice of sedition since national security law took effect in June 2020

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Koo Sze-yiu outside Eastern Court in 2021. The veteran activist, who is suffering from rectal cancer, has been detained since his arrest on December 8 last year. Photo: K. Y. Chen
Veteran opposition activist Koo Sze-yiu has been jailed for nine months over sedition after trying to protest last year’s “patriots-only” district council election, marking his second prison sentence for breaking the Hong Kong colonial-era law.
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The 78-year-old was convicted on Friday after West Kowloon Court heard he was planning to toss “hell money” and unveil a handcrafted coffin emblazoned with protest slogans outside the registration and electoral office in Kowloon on December 8, two days before the city’s electors cast their ballot.

Chief Magistrate Victor So Wai-tak found the public display was intended to excite disaffection with the new administrative order and foster hatred towards the Hong Kong government and central authorities.

“The defendant seized upon the district council election to call on others to reject the poll’s results, thereby instigating resistance,” said the magistrate, who was endorsed by the city leader to hear national security cases.

West Kowloon Court has convicted 78-year-old Koo Sze-yiu under the city’s colonial-era sedition law. Photo: Jelly Tse
West Kowloon Court has convicted 78-year-old Koo Sze-yiu under the city’s colonial-era sedition law. Photo: Jelly Tse

So said the intended use of the coffin and joss paper, a protest routine Koo had established over his years of activism, conveyed a message of overthrowing the Chinese Communist Party regime.

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