The previous editor-in-chief of Hong Kong’s Stand Information has been sentenced to jail on sedition expenses for the publication of reports reviews and different articles that prosecutors stated tried to advertise “unlawful ideologies”.
Chung Pui-kuen, 55, the previous editor-in-chief and the previous performing editor-in-chief Patrick Lam, 36, had been discovered responsible of conspiring to publish seditious supplies in late August after virtually a yr of delays. The dad or mum firm of the now-defunct Stand Information, Greatest Pencil Ltd, was additionally convicted.
The pair have been on bail for the reason that conviction however each spent virtually a yr in jail since they had been arrested.
On Thursday, the district court docket sentenced Chung to 21 months in jail, which means he should serve one other 10 months. Lam was launched after the choose stated he had factored in his poor well being and different mitigating elements, together with his quick time within the position overseeing the outlet. Lam’s defence workforce had informed the court docket earlier {that a} deteriorating kidney situation meant “any errors or delay in remedy may endanger his life”, in line with the Hong Kong Free Press.
The choose, who was greater than two hours late to proceedings, ordered Lam to be launched instantly.
Chung and Lam had been first arrested on 29 December 2021 after police raided the outlet’s newsroom. In October 2022, they pleaded not responsible. Chung selected to testify in court docket and spent 36 of the trial’s 57 days within the witness field and defended Stand Information and its dedication to press freedom.
“The media shouldn’t self-censor however report,” Chung stated. “Freedom of speech shouldn’t be restricted on the grounds of eradicating harmful concepts, however somewhat it ought to be used to eradicate harmful concepts.”
Nonetheless, the court docket had discovered 11 articles – largely opinion items – printed by Stand Information to be seditious. The 11 had been drawn from 17 that prosecutors had stated sought to advertise “unlawful ideologies” and to incite hatred in opposition to the governments in Hong Kong and China and the 2020 nationwide safety regulation. The choose discovered Chung chargeable for publishing 10 of the offending items, and Lam one.
The Stand Information case has been seen as a bellwether for Hong Kong’s diminishing media freedoms, and the growing threat for journalists persevering with to function within the metropolis. The sentencing comes per week after revelations that dozens of journalists had been harassed in a “systemic and organised assault” that included dying threats and threatening letters despatched to their employers, households, and landlords.
Stand Information was raided six months after authorities raided and shut down the pro-democracy tabloid Apple Every day, and arrested its founder, the media mogul and activist Jimmy Lai, in addition to a number of executives and editors together with his son. Within the wake of the raids on Stand Information, which additionally focused the house of its information editor, Ronson Chan, the outlet eliminated its content material from on-line and shut down.
The raid on Stand Information prompted the impartial outlet Citizen Information to announce inside days that it will stop operations, citing the more and more dangerous media surroundings.
Launched in 2014, Stand Information had been a major supply of reports in regards to the 2019 pro-democracy protests and the tough crackdown by authorities, and was seen by Hongkongers as one of many metropolis’s most credible shops, in line with surveys. Its reporters had been on the frontline of reporting protests together with those who turned violent.
Its then-reporter Gwyneth Ho livestreamed her reporting from Yuen Lengthy station as gangs attacked protesters and commuters after which the reporter herself. In 2020 Ho introduced herself as a candidate for Hong Kong’s legislative elections however was later disqualified. In 2021 she was jailed for collaborating in an “unofficial meeting” at a Tiananmen Sq. bloodbath vigil, and this yr was convicted as one of many “Hong Kong 47” for working unofficial pre-election primaries in 2020.
A profile of Ho as an election candidate was amongst the 11 articles deemed seditious by the court docket. Others included a characteristic on pupil protests, three commentaries by the self-exiled former legislator and pro-democracy campaigner Nathan Regulation, and 4 others by veteran journalist and journalism instructor Allan Au. Au’s topics included a bit on “new phrases in 2020” referring to the nationwide safety crackdown, and criticisms of the nationwide safety regulation and a associated trial. One other article by Au accusing authorities of utilizing the sedition regulation – below which the Stand Information editors had been convicted – as “lawfare”.
The sedition regulation dates again to the British colonial period and had been little used till authorities started charging pro-democracy figures with its crimes after the 2019 protests. It was repealed in March after Hong Kong launched its personal home nationwide safety regulation.
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