Guilty verdicts for two Hong Kong journalists charged with sedition

Aug. 29 (UPI) -- A Hong Kong court convicted two journalists of conspiracy to commit sedition Thursday, the first time members of the press have been found guilty of the offense since the city-state returned to Chinese rule 27 years ago.

Stand News' former editor-in-chief Chung Pui-kuen, 54, and acting editor-in-chief Patrick Lam, 36, face prison sentences of up to two years and a $640 fine after Judge Kwok Wai-kin ruled that 11 articles the pair published in 2020 and 2021 in the since-shuttered not for profit online news outlet were seditious.

"The court rules that the political atmosphere was extremely heated at the time of the case. Many residents were dissatisfied with or even opposing the [Hong Kong] and [central] governments," Kwok wrote in his judgment at the end of a two-year trial.

The court ruled that within the febrile context of mass anti-government unrest in the territory over a new national security law , "Article 23," handed down from Beijing, it found 11 of the 17 articles presented by the prosecution to have "seditious intentions."

"[Chung and Lam] knew of and agreed with the seditious intention of the articles. They provided Stand News as a publication platform" to promote antipathy toward authorities in Hong Kong and Beijing while advocating "autonomy" for the territory, wrote Kwok.

He said Stand News became "a tool to smear and slander" the central and Hong Kong governments during protests in 2019, despite Hong Kong people at the time citing Stand News as one of the news sources they trusted the most.

Chung was found to be responsible for all but one of the 11 articles.

Counsel for Chung and Lam had argued that they were bona fide journalists covering public issues also being reported on by other local news media, accusing the prosecution of cherry-picking articles and bringing in new evidence it had not shared with the defense during discovery.

"Journalists do not have to be loyal to anyone or take sides against anyone. If we have any true allegiance, it is to the public and only the public, because we believe in freedom of the press and freedom of speech," Lam, who was not present due to health issues, said in a letter read out in court by Senior Counsel Audrey Eu.

Condemning the outcome of the case, the Hong Kong Journalists Association said Thursday that the guilty verdict "exemplifies the worrying decline of the city's press freedom ."

Prosecutors "microscopically scrutinized its editors and reporters' intent," HKJA said in a statement.

Interviews with activists who have since been imprisoned and opinion pieces that the prosecution alleged advocated "radical political ideologies" and incited hate against the national security law were among the articles found to be illegal.

One was an interview with activist and former Stand News journalist Gwyneth Ho -- one of 14 people convicted in May of conspiring to subvert the state over holding unofficial primary elections.

Others included op-ed articles written by journalism lecturer Allan Au and student protest leader and one-time lawmaker Nathan Law, now living in exile in London.

Authorities shut Stand News, wiped all online content and froze its assets in Dec. 2021 after national security police arrested Chung and Lam in a raid on its offices.

Reporters Without Borders, which ranked Hong Kong 135th out of 180 countries in its 2024 World Press Freedom Index down 65 places from 2018, said the guilty verdicts set a benchmark of what subjects were permissible and were a warning to journalists not to overstep it.

"It was very difficult for them to say what can trigger the authorities, national security police to prosecute them, or to arrest them, or basically even to threaten them with any other means," RWB's Aleksandra Bielakowska told NBC News.

Chung and Lam's convictions "could open the door," she said, for Hong Kong authorities to use the sedition sections of Article 23 "as another tool to basically threaten and prosecute journalists and media workers who are trying to report on some topics that are not in line with what authorities want."

The 1984 Sino-Britsh Joint Declaration that paved the way for the return of Hong Kong to China stipulates a 50-year buffer period during which freedoms and protections and the economic system that existed under British rule would be maintained, guaranteed by a "Hong Kong Basic Law" mini-constitution.

The Hong Kong government insists press freedom and freedom of speech remain protected under the mini-constitution and Bill of Rights but "are not absolute," with its Beijing-appointed Chief Executive John Lee warning of "evil elements" in the industry that media workers would do well to keep their distance from.

Chung and Lam who are both free on bail after spending 11 and 10 months in pre-trial detention, respectively, are scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 26.