The first person convicted under Hong Kong’s national security law is among the inaugural batch of graduates of a full-time college for inmates and has pledged to make up for his “disrespectful act towards the country”.
Leon Tong Ying-kit, 27, shared his reflections at a graduation ceremony for the first cohort of the Ethics College in Stanley’s Pak Sha Wan Correctional Institution on Thursday, and expressed regret for crimes he committed in 2020, saying he had been misled by “biased comments and false information”.
Tong was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2021 for driving his motorcycle into a group of police officers while flying a flag bearing the slogan “Liberate Hong Kong; revolution of our times”, the rallying call of the 2019 anti-government protests.
The former restaurant worker had been charged with inciting secession and committing a terrorist act under the national security law, imposed by Beijing in 2020 in the wake of the protests.
“I really hope to make amends for my disrespectful act towards the country, to use concrete actions to contribute to society,” said Tong, who was dressed in a navy blue graduation gown with green trim.
He said his supervisor under Project PATH, a rehabilitation scheme tailor-made for inmates jailed for protest-related offences, had referred him to the Ethics College.
“[Project PATH] has changed how I think. I used to only see the side I liked, and thought violence could solve many problems. However, I have come to realise that there could be many angles to approach one incident.
“I have also come to understand that violence shouldn’t be used to solve problems.”
Through the project, authorities aim to help those “influenced by radical thoughts” rebuild their values by boosting their sense of national identity.
Tong, who raised the national flag with a number of inmates at the ceremony, said he now felt “proud to be Chinese” as the programme had made him realise China’s development was “much better” than the West’s.
Tong received his diploma along with 74 other inmates, who all passed a one-year applied education diploma.
The qualification is equivalent to attaining level two in five subjects under the Diploma of Secondary Education, including Chinese language and English language.
Secretary for Security Chris Tang Ping-keung, who attended the ceremony, said he felt “touched” hearing Tong’s comments and described the Ethics College’s first run as a success.
“Our admissions [team] will consider inmates’ background and whether they have a reasonable capability to finish the programme,” Tang said.
“We will evaluate the prospects of increasing the quota, and consider introducing other programmes.”
Instructors from the Metropolitan University of Hong Kong teach inmates the mandatory subjects of Chinese, English, maths, life planning and interpersonal relations, and communications. Either interior design, advertising or public relations and marketing can be chosen as an elective.
Volunteer tutors were invited to provide tutorials to improve inmates’ academic performance.
Lawyer Ludwig Ng Siu-wing had been spending two hours a week at Pak Sha Wan Correctional Institution teaching maths and English, after hearing about the opportunity at an event organised by rehabilitation non-profit organisation SideBySide.
The volunteer tutor said he had designed maths questions with daily life scenarios to boost his students’ interest in the subject, including using stock market statistics and explaining conditional probabilities on the accuracy of Covid-19 test kits.
“[The inmates] are not vastly different from other students outside. The only difference between them is that they put in a lot more effort and work a lot harder,” Ng said.
He added that he hoped the institution would be able provide more individual teaching time for students to boost their academic performance.
