She kept saying: “I did not break the law, they framed me.” Why would she keep saying this in response to seemingly unrelated questions like whether she had a history of psychiatric care or whether she knew she was in a courtroom?
I don’t know. But sounds like she was simply staying on message (Hong Kong Free Press, September 7, 2026).
An elderly woman has been charged with displaying publications with a seditious intention outside her flat in Tin Shui Wai.
Yang Chau-kei, 61, appeared at the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts on Monday for the first mention of her case.
She stands accused of putting up materials with a seditious intention outside her apartment in Tin Chung Court—including on her apartment door, on the living room window, and in the building corridor—between March and November 2024.
In doing so, Yang intended to stir up hatred against Hong Kong authorities and “the fundamental system of the state established by the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China,” a charge sheet prepared by the prosecution stated.
According to local media, Yang chose to defend herself, refusing the services of a duty lawyer assigned to defendants who lack representation.
Wearing a black top and black face mask, she said multiple times in Cantonese: “I did not break the law, they framed me”—a phrase she repeated when asked by Chief Magistrate Victor So if she needed a lawyer.
So far, so sane.
When this “elderly” woman (reported to be 61 and also reported to be elderly; they can’t both be true) was arrested for displaying seditious literature, she may have decided that she lacked the perfect presence of mind and ingenuity to say always the right thing no matter what police, lawyers and judges said to her. So maybe by the time of this court appearance she had settled on the one thing that she wanted to make sure would be clearly and emphatically conveyed to the people around her and to the press: that she had been framed.
She is right. Everybody in Hong Kong accused of sedition for speaking his mind has been framed.
Even so, the judge is putting the case on pause until September 21 so that prosecutors can “order psychiatric reports to assess whether Yang is fit to submit a plea.” And he has remanded her to a psychiatric facility. She faces up to seven years in prison.
