According to Article 21 of the national security legislation: “If the circumstances from the offence committed with a person are of a serious nature, the individual shall be sentenced in order to fixed-term imprisonment associated with not less than five years but not more than 10 years”.
The judges mentioned the lower court judge, Stanley Chan “was wrong to use the applicant’s lack of remorse as a reason in order to assign this situation to the “serious” category”, though it failed to affect the conclusion that this case was of a “serious nature”.
What Ma do “remained at the entry level of that classification”, the judges added.
Senior Counsel Edwin Choy, representing Ma, argued that his sentence should be nearer to five years, as the impact of Ma chanting a saying was small and did not have detailed plans on pushing ahead a pro-independence stance.
The national security law punishes anything China views as subversion, secession, terrorism and collusion with foreign pushes with up to life in prison and it has been widely rebuked as a tool in order to purge political competitors and civil community groups.
Regulators in Beijing and Hong Kong say legislation was necessary to recover stability to the monetary hub after anti-government protests in 2019.
More than 200 people, including many of the city’s most prominent opposition politicians plus activists, have been caught for endangering nationwide security. Most have already been denied bail.