Stand News trial: Two Hong Kong journalists found guilty of sedition

Two journalists who led a pro-democracy newspaper in Hong Kong were convicted of sedition Thursday, in a verdict that could have profound implications for press freedom in the Chinese territory.

HONG KONG — Two journalists who led a pro-democracy newspaper in Hong Kong were convicted of sedition Thursday, in a verdict that could have profound implications for press freedom in the Chinese territory.

Chung Pui-kuen, the former editor-in-chief of the now-defunct Stand News, and Patrick Lam, the newspaper’s former acting editor-in-chief, had pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to publish seditious materials under a law dating to the city’s time as a British colony.

Hong Kong authorities have resurrected the sedition law as part of a broad crackdown on dissent following mass antigovernment protests that roiled the city for months in 2019. But this was the first time it had been used against the media since 1997, when Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule on the condition that civil liberties such as press freedom be preserved for 50 years.

Prosecutors based their case on 17 articles Stand News published from July 2020 to Dec. 2021 that they described as seditious, which is defined as inciting hatred or contempt against the Chinese central government, the Hong Kong government or the judiciary.

A judge ruled Thursday that 11 of those 17 articles had “seditious intentions.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/hong-kong-stand-news-trial-press-freedom-rcna168351

---