By KANIS LEUNG
HONG KONG (AP) — A Hong Kong courtroom on Thursday convicted two former editors of a shuttered information outlet in a sedition case extensively seen as a barometer for the way forward for media freedoms in a metropolis as soon as hailed as a bastion of free press in Asia.
The trial of Stand Information former editor-in-chief Chung Pui-kuen and former appearing editor-in-chief Patrick Lam was Hong Kong’s first involving the media because the former British colony returned to Chinese language rule in 1997.
Stand Information, which closed in December 2021, had been one of many metropolis’s final media shops that brazenly criticized the federal government because it waged a crackdown on dissent following huge pro-democracy protests in 2019.
It was shut down simply months after the pro-democracy Apple Day by day newspaper, whose jailed founder Jimmy Lai is preventing collusion prices beneath a sweeping nationwide safety legislation enacted in 2020.
Chung and Lam had pleaded not responsible to conspiracy to publish and reproduce seditious publications — prices that have been introduced beneath a colonial-era sedition legislation used more and more to crush dissidents. They resist two years in jail and a wonderful of 5,000 Hong Kong {dollars} (about $640) for a primary offense.
Finest Pencil (Hong Kong) Ltd., the outlet’s holding firm, was convicted on the identical cost. It had no representatives in the course of the trial, which started in October 2022.
Decide Kwok Wai-kin stated in his written judgment that Stand Information grew to become a instrument for smearing the Beijing and Hong Kong governments in the course of the 2019 protests.
He stated a conviction is deemed proportional “when speech, within the related context, is deemed to have brought about potential harm to nationwide safety and intends to noticeably undermine the authority of the Chinese language central authorities or the Hong Kong authorities, and that it have to be stopped.”
The case was centered on 17 articles Stand Information had printed. Prosecutors stated some promoted “unlawful ideologies,” or smeared the safety legislation and legislation enforcement officers. Decide Kwok dominated that 11 carried seditious intent, together with commentaries written by activist Nathan Regulation and esteemed journalists Allan Au and Chan Pui-man. Chan can also be Chung’s spouse.
The decide discovered that the opposite six didn’t carry seditious intent, together with in interviews with pro-democracy ex-lawmakers Regulation and Ted Hui, who’re amongst overseas-based activists focused by Hong Kong police bounties.
Chung appeared calm after the decision whereas Lam didn’t seem in courtroom as a consequence of well being causes. They got bail pending sentencing on Sept. 26.
Protection lawyer Audrey Eu learn out a mitigation assertion from Lam, who stated Stand Information reporters sought to run a information outlet with totally unbiased editorial requirements. “The one approach for journalists to defend press freedom is reporting,” Eu quoted Lam as saying.
Eu didn’t learn out Chung’s mitigation letter in courtroom. However native media shops quoted his letter, wherein he wrote that many Hong Kongers who will not be journalists have held to their beliefs, and a few have misplaced their very own freedom as a result of they care about everybody’s freedom locally.
“Precisely recording and reporting their tales and ideas is an inescapable accountability of journalists,” he wrote in that letter.
After the decision, former Stand Information journalist Ronson Chan stated no one had advised reporters that they may be arrested in the event that they did any interviews or write something.
The supply of the decision was delayed a number of occasions for varied causes, together with awaiting the attraction final result of one other landmark sedition case. Dozens of residents and reporters lined as much as safe a seat for the listening to.
Resident Kevin Ng, who was among the many first within the line, stated he was a reader of Stand Information and has been following the trial. Ng, 28, stated he learn much less information after its shutdown, feeling the town has misplaced some vital voices.
“They reported the reality, they defended press freedom,” Ng, who works in threat administration trade, stated of the editors.
Stand Information shut down following a police raid at its workplace and the arrests of its leaders. Armed with a warrant to grab related journalistic supplies, greater than 200 officers participated within the operation.
Days after Stand Information shut down, unbiased information outlet Citizen Information additionally introduced it might stop operations, citing the deteriorating media atmosphere and the potential dangers to its workers.
Hong Kong was ranked 135 out of 180 territories in Reporters With out Borders’ newest World Press Freedom Index, down from 80 in 2021. Self-censorship has additionally turn into extra distinguished in the course of the political crackdown on dissent. In March, the town authorities enacted one other new safety legislation that raised considerations it might additional curtail press freedom.
Francis Lee, journalism and communication professor on the Chinese language College of Hong Kong, stated the ruling on which articles have been seditious seems to be drawing traces. At any time when an article is a couple of one-sided political stance, extremely vital or considered as missing factual foundation, then that might be thought of as smearing, Lee stated.
Among the courtroom’s logic differs from how journalists usually assume, he stated. Journalists “might need to be extra cautious to any extent further.”
Eric Lai, a analysis fellow at Georgetown Middle for Asian Regulation, stated the ruling is in keeping with “the anti-free-speech pattern” of rulings because the 2020 safety legislation took impact, criminalizing journalists finishing up their skilled duties.
International governments criticized the convictions. U.S. State Division spokesperson Matthew Miller wrote on X that it was a “direct assault on media freedom.”
Nevertheless, Eric Chan, Hong Kong’s Chief Secretary for Administration, insisted that when journalists conduct their reporting based mostly on details, there wouldn’t be any restrictions on such freedom.
Steve Li, chief superintendent of the police nationwide safety division, advised reporters the ruling confirmed their enforcement three years in the past — criticized by some as a suppression of free press — was mandatory.
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