Written by Staff Writer
Roger Kamb, CNN Hong Kong Written by Staff Writer
Hong Kong on Tuesday night jailed a 20-year-old student activist for seven years under the Chinese-ruled city’s national security law.
Yun Qing (also known as Vincent Jiang) was sentenced at the High Court after being convicted of “disrupting public order” in February.
One of the biggest and most-sought-after activists in the territory, Yun had been in detention since April 2016. He is one of the longest-serving political prisoners in Hong Kong.
Yun’s was arrested after several days of pro-democracy protests in 2014. He was suspected of distributing more than 15,000 leaflets for the Occupy Central movement which sought to paralyze the city by shutting down parts of the commercial hub.
At the time of his arrest, Yun was a student at Queen’s University, but he later quit to focus on activism. In 2016, he was arrested for defying restrictions placed on the Occupy Central movement by the government.
Occupy Central was the biggest pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong in over two decades and involved protests in 2014 demanding free elections and the withdrawal of a bill that would limit the choice of candidates in the city’s 2017 elections.
Since the era of the British colonial administration, which ended in 1997, Beijing has allowed democracy in Hong Kong to stay flexible, but the government has insisted on ensuring only “patriotic” candidates can stand for office.