Hong Kong man jailed for 11 months over social media posts calling for attacks on police and judges, spreading Covid-19

Repairman Chung Chi-chiu, 32, pleads guilty to three incitement charges in connection with posts on LIHKG forum between May 2021 and February 2022

Defendant called for attacks on police and judges, as well as spreading of coronavirus to end social-distancing curbs by ‘authoritarian’ government during pandemic

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Hong Kong’s District Court in Wan Chai. Photo: Warton Li

Published: 1:58pm, 12 May 2023Updated: 4:48pm, 12 May 2023

A 32-year-old Hong Kong man has been jailed for nearly a year after he took to social media to urge others to attack judges and police, as well as encourage people to spread the coronavirus during the pandemic.

Repairman Chung Chi-chiu pleaded guilty to three incitement charges at the District Court on Friday in relation to his statements on the popular LIHKG forum between May 2021 and February last year.

Police arrested the defendant after he proposed forcing city authorities to drop their zero-Covid strategy by actively transmitting the virus among the community in a social media post that attracted more than 3,500 likes.

Chung had suggested the “authoritarian” government would have no choice but to relax its stringent social-distancing rules if everyone was infected with the coronavirus.

He also said the Omicron variant was weaker than influenza, while the media and “mentally retarded experts” had disseminated lies about its transmissibility.

“When the virus is spread to every nook and cranny in Hong Kong, the f***ing zero-infection [strategy] of the Communist Hong Kong government and its atrocious policies will literally come to nothing,” Chung wrote in the post.