According to the Christian Post, China's anti-free speech law, which has been in place for two years, has made its way into previously independent Hong Kong.
A judge in Hong Kong sentenced a 59-year-old Protestant pastor to more than one year in prison for sedition, making him the first Christian clergy in the city to be convicted under the draconian national security law that mainland China imposed two years ago.
"You have lost your conscience," Pastor Garry Pang Moon-yuen reportedly told another judge during the hearing of activist Chow Hang-tung on Jan. 4, for which Magistrate Cheng Lim-chi at the West Kowloon Court on Thursday sentenced him to 10 months imprisonment for sedition and three months for seditious speech, UCA News reported.
In a separate case, a housewife identified as Chiu Mei-ying was also found guilty of sedition and sentenced to jail for clapping and criticizing magistrate Amy Chan during Chow's sentencing trial for encouraging people to participate in a vigil commemorating Tiananmen Massacre.
Pang and Chiu, who were attending the trial and applauded after Chow made an appeal for herself, were arrested in April for their comments and gestures during her trial and for the pastor's videos and livestreams on his YouTube channel.
Pang, who is a pastor, supported an activist who wanted to commemorate the Tianneman Square tragedy.
And because he went against China's communist rulers, due to his Christian conviction, he is now being jailed as if he's a traitor.
In one of his videos, Pang criticized magistrate Chan for "threatening to silence" people when she asked attendees who clapped during that trial to leave.
During sentencing, the judge said Pang had "demeaned the magistrate" and it was not a case of "a slip of the tongue."
The pastor issued a warning at his trial last month, saying, "What's going on in the court right now is not only a legal battle over sedition but also a battle to defend human rights and freedoms, a battle of safeguarding conscience."
He was literally put in jail for applauding during a trial because someone was willing to tell the truth about the Chinese Communist Party.
This is clearly a tactic to get other people to shut up and withhold all criticisms of the CCP.
The U.S.-based persecution watchdog International Christian Concern quoted a Catholic clergyman from Hong Kong as saying that, out of the fear of being charged under the security law, people in the city no longer share or like anything on Facebook that might offend the government.
"While Pang's case might have been widely discussed online before NSL, now there is little discussion about him," ICC said.
Speech is completely squelched in China. If you speak the truth you will be thrown into prison.
