An “unauthorised article” that detained Hong Kong activist Owen Chow was accused of transporting out of a prison with the help of his lawyers was a complaint form meant for the government watchdog, a court has heard.
Chow and one of his lawyers, Phyllis Woo, 30, appeared at West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts on Tuesday. They were charged on Friday over removing unauthorised articles from a prison following their arrests by national security police last week.
A second lawyer who was arrested, a 29-year-old woman, was not charged.
Chow, who has been detained since January, is among the 47 democrats arrested and charged under the security law with conspiracy to commit subversion in 2021, after they organised primaries in a bid ahead of the later-postponed 2020 legislative election.
After Magistrate Don So repeatedly asked what the unauthorised article was, the prosecution said it was a letter of complaint that Woo had allegedly been given while visiting Chow, 26, at the Lai Chi Kok Reception Centre on May 2 – almost six months before their arrests last week. The prosecution added that it was not known what the complaint was about.
The Judiciary’s charge sheet describes the “unauthorised article” only as a document.
Senior counsel John Reading, for the defence, said the letter was a complaint form to the Ombudsman, the city’s government watchdog. Reading said he was not certain of the details, but that he believed it was a complaint against the Correctional Services Department (CSD) “concerning some books.”
The prosecution called the offence serious and asked the court to impose stricter bail restrictions on Woo, including ordering her to surrender her travel documents and barring her from leaving Hong Kong. But So denied the prosecution’s request.
The defence said such cases were handled with non-custodial sentences, and that Chow and Woo’s case “frankly had nothing to do with the national security law.”
Woo was released on a cash bail of HK$20,000, while Chow did not apply for bail.
The case was adjourned to January 23 next year.
According to the Prisons Ordinance, any person who carries “any arms, ammunition, weapon, instrument, intoxicating liquor, opium or other drugs, tobacco, money, clothing, provisions, letters, papers, books or any other article whatsoever” out of a prison may be fined HK$2,000 and imprisoned for three years.
Chow was granted bail in June 2021 after spending four months in custody awaiting his subversion trial. He had his bail revoked and was rearrested last January after a judge said he breached bail terms by publishing speech that could be seen as endangering national security.
Separately, the activist pleaded guilty last week to rioting on July 1, 2019, when hundreds of protesters stormed the Legislative Council building as weeks after the anti-extradition protests and unrest began.
Protests erupted in June 2019 over a since-axed extradition bill. They escalated into sometimes violent displays of dissent against police behaviour, amid calls for democracy and anger over Beijing’s encroachment. Demonstrators demanded an independent probe into police conduct, amnesty for those arrested and a halt to the characterisation of protests as “riots.”
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