Hong Kong journalists convicted of sedition

The verdict was condemned by free-speech campaigners, including Chris Patten, Britain’s final governor in the former colony.

Chung Pui-kuen leaves the district court in Hong Kong on Thursday. Picture: AFP

A Hong Kong court has convicted two senior journalists and their news website of sedition in the first case of its kind since the handover of the territory from Britain to China in 1997.

The district court found that Chung Pui-kuen, editor-in-chief of Stand News, and Patrick Lam, who was acting editor at the time of its closure in 2021, had used it as “a tool to smear and vilify” the central government in Beijing and the local authorities in Hong Kong. They face up to two years in jail.

The verdict was condemned by free-speech campaigners, including Chris Patten, Britain’s final governor in the former colony, who described it as “a dark day for press freedom” in Hong Kong. “The baseless allegations and ­verdict of this trial mark a further sinister turn ... as it is clear that ­political commentary and opinion pieces may violate ­national security,” Lord Patten said.

Stand News was set up in 2014 as protests against Beijing’s control of affairs in Hong Kong increased and pressure was applied to pro-democracy papers such as Apple Daily, whose founder Jimmy Lai is now in prison and facing further charges under the national security laws imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing from 2019.

Stand was raided in December 2021 under laws dating to colonial times, updated so that sedition was seen as effectively synonymous with opposition to rule by the communist party in Beijing. Sedition was finally included in the new national security laws this year.

Among the 17 articles cited were interviews with pro-democracy politicians and activists, and opinion pieces critical of the government and attacking the ­decline of free speech. The company behind Stand News, Best Pencil (Hong Kong), had its ­assets seized at the same time and the paper was closed.

Both editors pleaded not guilty, with Chung claiming that the articles were within the bounds of free speech guaranteed by Hong Kong’s post-handover constitution, the Basic Law, which enshrined the concept of “one country, two systems” for its governance.

That was interpreted by most observers as guaranteeing Hong Kong’s traditional freedoms despite being under the sovereignty of the central government in ­Beijing.

However, after a trial lasting more than 50 days, the judge at the district court in Wan Chai, Kwok Wai-kin, found that the journalists had “conspired to publish seditious articles” and that there was a “potential danger to national security”.

THE TIMES