Hong Kong media outlet to close after raid and arrest of staff members

Stand News will close after a police raid and arrests of seven current and former staff members.

Stand News acting editor-in-chief Patrick Lam is led handcuffed into the office on Wednesday. Picture: AFP

Hong Kong pro-democracy media outlet Stand News said on Wednesday it will close after a police raid and arrests of seven current and former staff members, in the latest blow to the city’s rapidly shrinking press freedoms.

Suppression of the semi-autonomous Chinese city’s local press has increased in the wake of 2019’s huge, often violent democracy protests and Beijing’s subsequent imposition of a sweeping national security law.

Stand News said in a statement on Facebook its website and social media will no longer be updated and will be taken down soon. It added that acting editor-in-chief Patrick Lam, who was earlier arrested, had resigned and all employees had been terminated. “Because of the current situation, Stand News will stop operating immediately,” the outlet said.

National security police senior superintendent Steve Li accused the media outlet of publishing ­articles between July 2020 and last month that incited hatred ­towards the Hong Kong government, which included news ­reports and blog posts. “They described Hong Kong protesters as ‘being disappeared’ and ‘violated’ … These are malicious allegations without any factual basis,” Mr Li told a press conference.

The seven individuals were ­arrested under a British colonial-era law for “conspiracy to publish seditious publication”.

Around lunchtime on Wednesday, national security police could be seen hauling boxes from Stand News’ office. Mr Li said they seized computers, phones, documents and $HK500,000 ($88,836) in cash.

The national security unit froze about $HK61m ($10.84m) in assets from the media outlet, one of the largest sums it has ever frozen, Mr Li said.

More than 200 officers were deployed to search the newsroom with court authorisation to seize journalistic materials, police said.

An AFP reporter saw Stand News’ Lam being led handcuffed into the office after his arrest.

Police also arrested former editor-in-chief Chung Pui-kuen, as well as four board members who resigned in June, according to local media.

Mr Li would not rule out further arrests, and said some individuals not in Hong Kong had been put on a wanted list.

Announcing its closure, Stand News thanked its readers, saying it was established as a non-profit in December 2014 to “take a stand in Hong Kong”.

“Stand News was editorially independent, and was dedicated to protecting Hong Kong’s core values such as democracy, human rights, freedom, rule of law and justice,” it said.

The Committee to Protect Journalists described the raid as “an open assault on Hong Kong’s already tattered press freedom” and called for charges to be dropped.

Stand News is the second Hong Kong media company targeted by the authorities after Apple Daily, which shut down in June after its assets were frozen under the national security law.

Mr Li denied police were targeting reporters and the media, saying that news outlets will not face the law if their journalists write “unbiased” reports.

Shortly before dawn, Stand News broadcast live on Facebook that national security police were outside the door of deputy assignment editor Ronson Chan, who had several devices confiscated but was not arrested.

The former Stand News board members arrested Wednesday include Hong Kong pop star Denise Ho, barrister Margaret Ng, Christine Fang and Chow Tat-chi, according to local media reports.

AFP