Hong Kong singer given 26-month sentence for sedition and money laundering – JURIST

Hong Kong District Court judge Ernest Lin Kam-hung handed down a judgment Thursday sentencing Tommy Yuen, a former Cantopop boy band member, to 26 months of imprisonment. Yuen was convicted of “doing acts with seditious intention” and “dealing with property known or believed to represent proceeds of an indictable offence.”

Lin found that Yuen made seditious statements on Facebook and Instagram in 2021, including posts about the death of a marine police officer, injuries suffered by former Chief Executive Carrie Lamb after a fall and cases of officer misconduct. Lin thus believed that Yuen had been advocating for Hong Kong independence and insulting Hong Kong’s government.

On top of sedition, Lin also found that Yuen and his wife had been taking advantage of his fame to raise money through crowd-funding. For instance, Yuen was accused of promoting his concert online and raising over HKD$ 200k using an imaginary woman called “A” to solicit support and money from the public. Lin commented that Yuen and his wife were like “producing a TV drama” to “manipulate others’ sympathy”, as translated by a local news outlet.

Yuen was given a sentence of 39 months, which was then reduced by one-third to 26 months, as he had pled guilty in July.

Yuen was well known as a member of the Cantopop boy group E-kids, which was disbanded in 2006. He had been active in the 2019 anti-extradition protests, which led to the enactment of the National Security Law in 2020. Meanwhile, Lin had been called a “pro-government” or “pro-China” judge due to his inclination to convict rioters and participants in the 2019 protests. Last year, Lin received complaints about directing three people wearing yellow masks in his courtroom to change their face gear without justification.