Because the news site often covered the 2019 pro-democracy movement favorably, a Hong Kong court found them guilty of “ “sedition” two former editors-in-chief of Stand News, now closed, as well as the site’s editorial board, Thursday, August 29.
The two former editors-in-chief, Chung Pui-kuen and Patrick Kam, were found guilty by Wan Chai District Court Judge Kwok Wai-kin of “conspiracy to publish and reproduce seditious content.” Best Pencil Limited was also found guilty of sedition.
“The line adopted [par Stand News] was to support and promote local autonomy in Hong Kong.Kwok wrote in his verdict. “It has even become a tool for defaming and denigrating central authorities. [Pékin] and the government of the special administrative region [de Hongkong] »he added.
The sedition trial was the first in Hong Kong involving the media since the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997. By 2022, five authors of books explaining the democracy movement to children had already been convicted of sedition.
The site was closed by authorities in 2021.
Stand News, a popular news portal founded in 2014 that covered the 2019 pro-democracy movement in great detail and often in a favorable light, closed in 2021 after a police raid on its premises, the arrest of its leaders and the freezing of its assets.
Lam, who was 34 at the time of her indictment, was unable to attend Thursday’s hearing for health reasons, but her lawyers agreed that the court would rule in her absence. More than a hundred people, including activists and journalists who came to cover the trial, were present at the court. Among them, Lau Yan-hin, a former employee of Stand News, described the trial as“widespread attack” against the media.
The hearing was also attended by representatives of several consulates, including those of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, the European Union and Australia.
The crime of sedition, which dates back to colonial times and once fell into disuse, is increasingly being used by Hong Kong’s justice system to suppress dissent.
This decision comes in a context of deteriorating press freedom in the former British colony, which has gone, in twenty-two years, from 18my in 135my position in the press freedom ranking published by the organization Reporters Without Borders.
