Hong Kong woman jailed for 10 months over inciting others to mimic stabbing of police officer

A Hong Kong woman has been sentenced to 10 months in prison over inciting others to mimic a stabbing of a police officer two years ago.

Yip Sin-man, 22, appeared before District Court Judge Adriana Tse on Wednesday for sentencing after being remanded in custody since pleading guilty to incitement to wound with intent last month.

On July 2, 2021, Yip sent texts on messaging app Telegram, Tse said, saying that dates such as July 1, the anniversary of Hong Kong’s Handover to Chinese rule, and October 1, China’s National Day, were good days for killing “dogs” – slang for police officers popularised during the 2019 protests and unrest.

Protests erupted in June that year 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.”

Yip’s text was sent a day after a man stabbed a police constable outside the Sogo shopping mall in Causeway Bay, one of the city’s busiest shopping interchanges, before killing himself.

‘Open challenge’ of police

Yip, who identified herself as a “terrorist” on Telegram, also sent messages saying that “blossoming” was useless, referring to hit-and-run guerrilla protest tactics employed by protesters in late 2019. “It’d be fucking awesome to play with an M82 in Hong Kong,” she said, referring to a semi-automatic sniper rifle.

District Court Judge Adriana Tse. Photo: Judiciary.

Tse said Yip also wrote in private text messages with her boyfriend at the time that she “wanted to die” and that she wanted to kill a police officer before she died.

Yip “openly challenged the police’s law enforcement powers” and “attacked the police’s credibility,” Tse said, speaking in Cantonese. Considering that Yip did not have a criminal record and that she pleaded guilty, the 22-year-old student was sentenced to 10 months in prison.

Tse also said the fact that Yip’s messages did not result in another attempt on an officer’s life was not a mitigating factor, adding that the offence was a serious one carrying a maximum punishment of life imprisonment.

In a separate case, Yip was last month handed a 21-day jail term suspended for 12 months after pleading guilty to contempt of court over violating a court injunction which barred the release of police officers’ personal information, also known as doxxing.

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