'Fast beat' Tam Tak-chi jailed for 40 months for sedition

20-04-2022 11:12 HKT

Pro-democracy activist “Fast Beat” Tam Tak-chi was handed a 40-month prison sentence and a HK$5,000 fine on Wednesday after he was convicted of 11 charges in a sedition trial.

Tam, 50, has already been held in jail without bail for more than a year since he was arrested in September 2020. He was handed the terms from Judge Stanley Chan in District Court today.

The activist’s convictions stemmed from uttering seditious words with the intention of inciting “hatred or contempt” against the Hong Kong government, including the now-banned protest phrase “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times” and “death to corrupted police families,” according to court documents.

Court documents also noted Tam repeated these phrases several hundred times between January and July 2020.

In the city’s first national security trial, three judges had ruled that the “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times” slogan could incite others to commit secession.

In addition to the prison term, the court also imposed a fine of HK$5,000 on Tam, who needs to pay the amount within two months or face 14 more days in jail.

Tam was in March found guilty on 11 counts - seven for uttering seditious words, one for disorderly conduct in a public place, another for convening an unauthorized assembly and one more for refusing to obey an officer.

He was cleared of three charges – conspiracy to utter seditious words and two counts of disorderly conduct in public – on technical grounds.

In Chan’s verdict last month, the judge ruled that there was no difference whether words targeting the Communist Party, the central government, or the Hong Kong government.

He also found the protest phrase “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times” chanted by Tam was capable of inciting others to separate the city from Chinese soil, similar to a ruling in the city’s first national security trial, where three judges had ruled that the catchphrase could incite others to commit secession.