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A 21-year-old man was sentenced to 20-day imprisonment for desecrating the national flag in Hong Kong, according to the judgment handed down on Friday by the High Court of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR).
This is the first case in Hong Kong in which the defendant is sentenced to imprisonment for insulting the national flag.
The man admitted earlier at the Shatin Magistrates' Courts that he had publicly and intentionally insulted the national flag by damaging, scribbling, defiling and trampling on it on Sept. 22, 2019 at different locations between New Town Plaza and Shatin Town Hall in Shatin area in the New Territories.
The Court of Appeal of the High Court handed down its judgment on Friday allowing the application for review of sentence by the Secretary for Justice of the HKSAR government, setting aside the community service order imposed by the trial magistrate, and ordering the defendant to serve 20 days' imprisonment for the offense of desecrating the national flag.
The court pointed out that the trial magistrate erred in principle when passing sentence and failed to fully comprehend the relevant facts of the case and the various aggravating factors, thereby wrongly imposed a community service order on the defendant.
The court held that the man's act of desecrating the national flag "was seriously bad and had gravely undermined the dignity of the state that the national flag represents."
The defendant flagrantly and repeatedly desecrated the national flag in the presence of a large crowd of people. He desecrated the national flag in a series of different modes and at more than one location, it said.
The court held that "the respondent's culpability was serious" and an immediate custodial sentence is the only sentencing option.
"As the respondent committed the offense in the presence of a large crowd of people, which had the effect of inciting other people, the court must impose a deterrent sentence of immediate imprisonment," it said.
