Hong Kong has charged two men, one of them a teenager, for posting "seditious messages" on social media and inciting violence, police said on Thursday, using a colonial-era law that critics say is a tool to quash dissent.

Beijing has imposed a sweeping political crackdown on Hong Kong after the Chinese finance hub saw huge and sometimes violent pro-democracy protests three years ago.

The men, aged 18 and 29, were arrested on Tuesday after publishing posts that "promote feelings of ill-will and enmity between different classes of the population of Hong Kong and incite the use of violence", police said.

Since 2020, authorities have prosecuted activists and opposition figures using a Beijing-imposed national security law as well as sedition charges.

The latter come from a colonial-era law that had fallen into obscurity for decades until prosecutors dusted it off in the aftermath of the protests.

Hong Kong has arrested 215 people for national security offences as of mid-September and nearly 130 of them were formally charged.

Police on Thursday did not specify what content was deemed seditious in the two men's social media posts.

Wen Wei Po, a Chinese state-affiliated newspaper, earlier reported that the posts in question included calls for separatism and for sanctions against national security police and judges.

The younger defendant also faces additional charges of insulting China's national anthem -- including via "intentionally publishing altered lyrics" -- and desecrating the national flag.

Last week, Hong Kong authorities arrested a man for sedition after he played a protest anthem on his harmonica outside the British consulate during Elizabeth II's funeral.

Sedition is punishable by up to two years in jail on first conviction.

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