Hong Kong prepares for Stand News verdict in latest media freedom test
Al Jazeera
Two editors from now-closed independent publication are facing sedition charges over the outlet’s reporting.
Two Hong Kong journalists will learn the outcome this week of their landmark sedition trial, whose verdict could set the tone for the future of journalism in the Chinese city.
The two journalists, Chung Pui-kuen and Patrick Lam, are former editors of the now-closed independent news outlet, Stand News. They face up to two years in prison if found guilty under Hong Kong’s colonial-era sedition laws.
The pair were arrested by Hong Kong’s national security police in December 2021 along with five other Stand News staff and board members, including Denise Ho, a pop singer turned prominent pro-democracy activist, and Margaret Ng, a widely respected former politician and barrister.
Sedition laws were introduced in Hong Kong when it was a British colony but had lain dormant until 2020 when Beijing imposed new national security laws in response to months of antigovernment protests a year earlier.
Along with new crimes like “collusion with foreign forces” or “subversion,” prosecutors began charging Hong Kong people with the crime of “sedition” for the first time in more than 50 years.
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