Five Speech Therapists Sentenced to Prison for "Seditious" Children's Books Published in Hong Kong

MADRID, 10 Sep. (EUROPA PRESS) -

Five speech therapists have each been sentenced to 19 months in prison for publishing a series of "seditious" children's electronic books in which a sheep tries to chase the wolves out of its village, allegedly a metaphor for Beijing's political interference in Hong Kong. Kong.

The five authors have argued that the books tell the story "from the perspective of the people", but Judge Kwok Wai Kin has concluded that he sought to "brainwash" the minors and "plant the seed of instability", according to the BBC.

The inmates, Lai Man Ling, Melody Yeung, Sidney Ng, Samuel Chan and Fong Tsz-ho, have already been in prison for more than a year awaiting sentencing, so they hope to soon be released from prison for serving their sentence, according to one of his lawyers. They are between 25 and 28 years old.

The sentence is based on a colonial-era sedition law that is rarely used by prosecutors to charge suspects.

Hong Kong has a special autonomous regime within China, but the passage in 2020 of the National Security Law has deeply affected freedoms and contestation.