A student from Hong Kong who had been studying at a Japanese university has been indicted for “seditious” online statements made while she was in Japan, a case that adds to fears over a sweeping national security law that is being deployed beyond the city’s borders.
Yuen Ching-ting, 23, had returned from Tokyo in February to renew her identity card and was arrested in early March — a day before her scheduled flight to Japan — over her posts on social media, the South China Morning Post reported.
In the Thursday indictment, handed down by Hong Kong’s National Security Department, she was charged with “doing an act or acts with seditious intention” and accused by the prosecutor of using language that incites “hatred or contempt” against the central government in Beijing and the authorities in Hong Kong, Nikkei Asia reported.