HONG KONG, China
A Hong Kong court on Thursday convicted two former editors of a shuttered news outlet in a sedition case widely seen as a barometer for the future of media freedoms in a city once hailed as a bastion of free press in Asia.
The trial of Stand News former
editor-in-chief Chung Pui-kuen and former acting editor-in-chief Patrick Lam
was Hong Kong’s first involving the media since the former British colony
returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
Stand News, which closed in
December 2021, had been one of the city’s last media outlets that openly
criticized the government as it waged a crackdown on dissent following massive
pro-democracy protests in 2019.
It was shut down just months
after the pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper, whose jailed founder Jimmy Lai
is fighting collusion charges under a sweeping national security law enacted in
2020.
Chung and Lam had pleaded not
guilty to conspiracy to publish and reproduce seditious publications — charges
that were brought under a colonial-era sedition law used increasingly to crush
dissidents. They face up to two years in prison and a fine of 5,000 Hong Kong
dollars (about $640) 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 said in his
written judgment that Stand News became a tool for smearing the Beijing and
Hong Kong governments during the 2019 protests.
He said a conviction is deemed
proportional “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, and
that it must be stopped.”
The case was centered on 17
articles Stand News had published. Prosecutors said some promoted “illegal
ideologies,” or smeared the security law and law enforcement officers. Judge
Kwok ruled that 11 carried seditious intent, including commentaries written by
activist Nathan Law and esteemed journalists Allan Au and Chan Pui-man. Chan is
also Chung’s wife.
The judge found that the other
six did not carry seditious intent, including in interviews with pro-democracy
ex-lawmakers Law and Ted Hui, who are among overseas-based activists targeted
by Hong Kong police bounties.
Chung appeared calm after the
verdict while Lam did not appear in court due to health reasons. They were
given bail pending sentencing on Sept. 26.
Defense lawyer Audrey Eu 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. But local media outlets 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 in that letter.
After the verdict, former
Stand News journalist Ronson Chan said nobody had told reporters that they
might be arrested if they did any interviews or write anything.
The delivery of the verdict
was delayed several times for various reasons, including awaiting the appeal
outcome of another landmark sedition case. Dozens of residents and reporters
lined up to secure a seat for the hearing.
Resident Kevin Ng, who was
among the first in the line, said he used to be a reader of Stand News and has
been following the trial. Ng, 28, said he read less news after its shutdown,
feeling the city has lost some critical voices.
“They reported the truth, they
defended press freedom,” Ng, who works in risk management industry, said of the
editors.
Stand News shut down following
a police raid at its office and the arrests of its leaders. Armed with a
warrant to seize relevant journalistic materials, more than 200 officers
participated in the operation.
Days after Stand News shut
down, independent news outlet Citizen News also announced it would cease
operations, citing the deteriorating media environment and the potential risks
to its staff.
Hong Kong was ranked 135 out
of 180 territories in Reporters Without Borders’ latest World Press Freedom
Index, down from 80 in 2021. Self-censorship has also become more prominent
during the political crackdown on dissent. In March, the city government enacted
another new security law that raised concerns it could further curtail press
freedom.
Francis Lee, journalism and
communication professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said the ruling
on which articles were seditious appears to be drawing lines. Whenever an
article is about a one-sided political stance, highly critical or viewed as
lacking factual basis, then that could be considered as smearing, Lee said.
Some of the court’s logic
differs from how journalists typically think, he said. Journalists “may have to
be more cautious from now on.”
Eric Lai, a research fellow at
Georgetown Center for Asian Law, said the ruling is in line with “the
anti-free-speech trend” of rulings since the 2020 security law took effect,
criminalizing journalists carrying out their professional duties.
Foreign governments criticized
the convictions. U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller wrote on X
that it was a “direct attack on media freedom.”
However, Eric Chan, Hong
Kong’s Chief Secretary for Administration, insisted that when journalists
conduct their reporting based on facts, there would not be any restrictions on
such freedom.
Steve Li, chief superintendent
of the police national security department, told reporters the ruling showed
their enforcement three years ago — criticized by some as a suppression of free
press — was necessary.
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