In this world, winners become kings and losers outlaws. No parents, anywhere, want to see their children end up behind bars.
A video circulating on social media — timed to the June 4th anniversary — shows footage from the 2014 Occupy Central movement. In it, a girl of six or seven sings the revolutionary anthem Who Has Not Yet Awakened in a sweet, childlike voice. Forty years ago, that might have been moving. Forty years on, all it inspires is dread — a gut-level warning: watch out, don't get played.
Feeding a child with political singing. What does early political exposure do to a young mind?
That video calls two recent news stories to mind.
Law Student Convicted of Riot on Retrial
A first-year law student at a British university returned to Hong Kong in 2019 and joined a riot in Wan Chai on August 30. She was acquitted of riot charges in 2021. The Department of Justice appealed successfully, and the Court of Appeal overturned the acquittal and ordered a retrial before the original magistrate. On June 9, Judge Lee Chun-man convicted Tang Ka-yan — who was 21 at the time of the offense — of riot.
Tang had argued there was no direct evidence of her participation — that she had simply been passing by. Judge Lee disagreed. He considered the location where she was stopped, along with her attire and equipment: black top, black trousers, gas mask, umbrella, and hiking pole. The cumulative weight of the circumstantial evidence, as the Court of Appeal had found, was overwhelming. It ruled out any possibility she was an innocent bystander. She was convicted of riot.
Now 28, Tang wept in the dock after the verdict. Her mother broke down in tears. Given the charge is riot, a substantial sentence is expected.
A law student committing a riot is knowing breach of the law. Her legal education abroad evidently taught her nothing about respecting it.
Construction Worker Convicted of Sedition
A construction worker committed a series of seditious acts between 2024 and 2025. On October 2, 2024 — the day after National Day — he wrote seditious messages on pieces of paper and threw them from the window of his flat in On Tat Estate, Kwun Tong. On December 5, 2025, two days before the Legislative Council election, he threw another batch of seditious leaflets from the same flat. Police arrested him on April 21 this year.
Under caution, the defendant admitted throwing the papers. He stated he had done so to express his discontent with the SAR government, including calls for the public to boycott the vote. He also said he harbored resentment toward Mainland residents, blaming them for taking jobs from local workers — which was why he had written phrases such as "Kill mainlanders" on the papers.
In mitigation, the defense noted that the defendant had a low level of education and had worked in construction throughout his life. The events of 2019 and the pandemic hit him hard — his work shifted from full-time to casual, and his income dropped sharply. Those grievances, the defense argued, led to the offending.
Chief Magistrate So Wai-tak was unsparing. He found the defendant had acted with premeditation — deliberately choosing significant dates to throw targeted messages from his flat. The sentence: 10 months' imprisonment.
Some may feel 10 months for throwing a few pieces of paper is steep. But consider the defendant's record: 23 prior criminal convictions spanning dishonesty, violence, drugs, and public order offenses — including illegal protests — with a previous sentence of four years. He is a serial offender, and the court treated him accordingly.
No Escaping the Consequences
The two cases, taken together, send a clear message. Whether a female university student or a male construction worker, using unlawful means to protest or riot ultimately triggers legal consequences. If only they had thought twice before acting.
For those with deeply entrenched anti-government views, asking them to be patriotic — or even supportive of the government — is, of course, expecting the impossible. But rational adults must understand this: if you choose to confront the government through extreme and unlawful means, you must be prepared to pay the price. The mitigation pleas in both cases suggest that neither defendant had truly reckoned with the possibility of arrest and imprisonment.
Most parents dream of their children achieving great things. Few could imagine them ending up as convicts. For those who filmed their young children speaking out against the SAR government — did they ever stop to think? Such actions plant anti-government ideas in those children's minds from an early age. Those ideas can one day lead them to break the law and face the consequences. Did those parents consider that such footage could lead other people's children astray — pushing them toward failed attempts at subversion, a life on the wrong side of the law, and a ruined future?
If you want to ruin yourself, that is your business. Don't drag others down with you.
Lo Wing-hung
Bastille Commentary
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