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HONG KONG: A Hong Kong court on Thursday (Aug 29) found two editors of the defunct Stand News media guilty of conspiracy to publish seditious articles, in a case that has attracted international attention amid a security crackdown in the city.
The two editors, Chung Pui-kuen and Lam Wai-keung, face up to two years in prison when they are sentenced on September 26. This is the first conviction for incitement of journalists or editors since Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule in 1997.
Critics, including the U.S. government, say their cases reflect a deterioration in media freedoms in Hong Kong.
Stand News was once Hong Kong’s leading online media, focusing on critical reporting and commentary, but it was raided by police in December 2021 and its assets were frozen, leading to its closure.
Wallace Chung, 54, Lam Wing-kee, 36, and the media’s parent company, Best Pencil (Hong Kong) Ltd, were all charged with conspiracy to publish seditious publications between July 2020 and December 2021, involving 17 news articles and commentaries.
Both Chung and Lam have pleaded not guilty, and only Chung appeared in court on Thursday to hear the verdict. Most of the articles identified by the court as seditious were edited or authorized by Chung.
“When speech is assessed as having seditious intent, the relevant factual circumstances must be taken into account and regarded as causing potential harm to national security, (and) must be suppressed,” District Court Judge Kwok Wai-kin wrote.
During the 57-day trial, government prosecutor Laura Ng said Stand News served as a political platform to promote “illegal” ideology and incited readers to hatred against China and the Hong Kong government.
Articles deemed seditious by the court included commentaries written by exiled activists Nathan Law and Alex Cheung, veteran journalist Au Chi-keung, the jailed former deputy publisher of Apple Daily and Cherie Chung’s wife, Chan Pui-man.
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