Hong Kong court finds Stand News editors guilty of sedition
Al Jazeera
Former editor-in-chief Chung Pui-kuen says freedom of speech should not be restricted on grounds of ‘eradicating dangerous ideas’.
A Hong Kong court has found two former chief editors of the now-defunct independent news outlet Stand News guilty of sedition in a landmark case that has taken place amid a security crackdown in the China-ruled city.
District Court judge Kwok Wai-kin announced the verdict on Thursday, declaring former editor-in-chief Chung Pui-kuen and former acting editor-in-chief Patrick Lam guilty of conspiring to publish seditious publications. He said 11 of 17 articles that the prosecution presented as evidence were seditious under the colonial-era sedition law.
The judge did not immediately hand down a sentence, but the pair could face as long as two years in prison and a fine of 5,000 Hong Kong dollars (about $640).
Reporting from Hong Kong, Al Jazeera’s Laura Westbrook said the trial was “being seen as a litmus test for press freedom in the city”, noting that it was the first sedition trial against Hong Kong journalists since the former British colony was handed back to China in 1997.
“People will be looking at this verdict as another worrying sign that the freedoms that … Hong Kong enjoyed have been slowly diminishing,” she said, with reference to journalists and international news organisations.
