Hong Kong artist gets suspended jail sentence again over 'freedom' graffiti

Hong Kong, Sep 12 (IANS) A Hong Kong artist has been once again been sentenced to three-week suspended jail term for tagging graffiti that depicted Chinese characters for "freedom".

The artist, Chan King-fai, who represented himself, at West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts on Friday pleaded guilty to four counts of criminal damage, Hong Kong Free Press reported. He has been accused of tagging graffiti that showcased the Chinese characters for "freedom" along with dollar signs in Kwai Chung and Sha Tin in 2023.

Earlier in June, Chan pleaded guilty to 12 counts of criminal damage related to tagging the same graffiti design in Central and Sheung Wan in January and February. He received a three-week jail sentence suspended for two years.

A suspended jail sentence means that the defendant will not have to serve the jail term until they commit another offence within a certain time period.

On Friday, magistrate Andy Cheng said that the two cases were similar and that it would have been more ideal if the four counts of criminal damage had been addressed in June too. Cheng stated that police's discovery of cases at different times caused the case to be split into two.

The magistrate stated that it was only fair to announce the same sentence again, another three-week jail term, suspended for two years. He even asked Chan whether he knew the meaning of suspended sentence, to which the artist responded yes.

During mitigation, Chan told the court that he suffered from anxiety and felt difficulty in sleeping and during those moments, he would get drunk and "do wrong things," Hong Kong Free Press reported. He said that since then, he has borrowed money from relatives to attend counselling programmes.

It is the third time that Chan has been charged over the graffiti design, which the court heard he had made at the end of 2022 to showcase his desire for financial freedom. After being charged in June, Chan King-fai was remanded in custody but his bail was approved a month later. He was first arrested in connection with graffiti in February 2023. In December 2023, he was sentenced to a one-year probation order after he pleaded to 20 counts of criminal damage.

--IANS

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