A Hong Kong court convicted two former editors of a shuttered news outlet yesterday, in a sedition case that is widely seen as a barometer for the future of media freedom in the territory once hailed as a bastion of free press in Asia.
Stand News former editor-in-chief Chung Pui-kuen (鍾沛權) and former acting editor-in-chief Patrick Lam (林紹桐) were arrested in December 2021. They pleaded not guilty to the charge of conspiracy to publish and reproduce seditious publications. Their sedition trial was Hong Kong’s first involving media since the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
Stand News was one of the territory’s last media outlets that openly criticized the government amid a crackdown on dissent that followed massive pro-democracy protests in 2019.
Photo: EPA-EFE
It was shut down just months after the pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper, whose jailed founder Jimmy Lai (黎智英) is fighting collusion charges under a sweeping national security law enacted in 2020.
Chung and Lam were charged under a colonial-era sedition law that has been used increasingly to crush dissidents. They face up to two years in prison and a fine of HK$5,000 (US$641) for a first offense.
Best Pencil (Hong Kong) Ltd, the outlet’s holding company, was convicted on the same charge. It had no representatives during the trial, which began in October 2022.
Judge Kwok Wai-kin (郭偉健) in his written judgement said that Stand News became a tool for smearing the Beijing and Hong Kong governments during the 2019 protests.
“When speech, in the relevant context, is deemed to have caused potential damage to national security and intends to seriously undermine the authority of the Chinese central government or the Hong Kong government ... it must be stopped,” he said.
The case was centered on 17 articles. Some promoted “illegal ideologies,” or smearing the security law and law enforcement officers, prosecutors said.
Judge Kwok found that 11 of the articles carried seditious intent, including commentaries written by activist Nathan Law (羅冠聰) and esteemed journalists Allan Au (區家麟) and Chan Pui-man (陳沛敏). Chan is also Chung’s wife.
Chung appeared calm after the verdict was handed down, while Lam did not appear in court due to health reasons. The pair were given bail pending sentencing on Sept. 26.
Defense lawyer Audrey Eu (余若薇) read out a mitigation statement from Lam, who said Stand News reporters sought to run a news outlet with fully independent editorial standards.
“The only way for journalists to defend press freedom is reporting,” Eu quoted Lam as saying.
Eu did not read out Chung’s mitigation letter in court. However, local media quoted his letter, in which he wrote that many Hong Kongers who are not journalists have held to their beliefs, and some have lost their own freedom because they care about everyone’s freedom in the community.
“Accurately recording and reporting their stories and thoughts is an inescapable responsibility of journalists,” he wrote.
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