Two people have been sentenced to two months in prison for calling on Facebook to vote blank in local elections in Hong Kong.
A man and a woman on Tuesday became the first to be sentenced, under new rules imposed by Beijing, for calling on Facebook to vote blank in local elections last December in Hong Kong.
Salesman Chan Kin-man, 36, and office assistant Alice Leung, 65, were both sentenced to two months in prison and an 18-month suspended prison sentence by a Hong Kong judge, after pleading guilty of “inducing others” not to vote or to vote invalidly.
They had been arrested shortly before the polls opened on December 19, 2021, for posting an appeal on Facebook from a former opposition lawmaker living overseas, asking Hong Kong voters to ” vote blank to resist the unjust system”.
Although blank voting is not a crime in Hong Kong, Judge Bina Chainrai ruled in court on Tuesday that the shared message was illegal because “it is not just about asking people to vote blank, but also about (…) show their dissatisfaction with the government”.
Calling for a blank vote or abstaining has become a criminal offense
Hong Kong is not a democracy. In the December poll, only 20 of the 90 members of the Legislative Council (LegCo) were elected by direct universal suffrage, the other 70 being appointed by committees loyal to Beijing.
These local elections were the first to be held under new rules imposed by mainland China and drastically reduced the number of seats filled by universal suffrage, reserving them only for “patriotic” candidates.
Abstaining or voting blank or void remains legal in Hong Kong. On the other hand, encouraging these practices constitutes a criminal offense since this year.
Offenders risk up to three years in prison and a fine of 200,000 Hong Kong dollars, or approximately 22,805 euros.
The city is led by a chief executive, appointed by a committee controlled by Beijing. New laws are debated and voted on in Hong Kong’s Legislative Council, the “LegCo”.
The new system governing this Council is another step in China’s recovery of Hong Kong after the massive pro-democracy protests of 2019.