A jailed Hong Kong student loses bid to reduce sentence over inciting secession

A jailed university student in Hong Kong lost his bid to reduce his five-year sentence for inciting secession in a landmark ruling by the city’s top court Tuesday that will have a far-reaching impact on other cases brought under a Beijing-imposed national security law.
Lui Sai-yu pleaded guilty to breaching the sweeping security law in April 2022 and admitted that content on a Telegram channel he administered incited others to separate Hong Kong from China or alter the legal status of the city unlawfully.
But his timely guilty plea did not get him a one-third reduction in the length of his imprisonment – like in many other cases under the city’s common law system – because the security law imposed minimum jail terms for serious offences.