By Jessie Pang and James Pomfret
HONG KONG (Reuters) -A Hong Kong court on Thursday found two editors of the now-defunct Stand News media outlet guilty of conspiring to publish seditious articles in a case that has drawn international scrutiny amid a security crackdown in the China-ruled city.
The two editors, Chung Pui-kuen and Patrick Lam, could be jailed for up to two years when they are sentenced on Sept. 26. Their conviction is the first for sedition against any journalist or editor since Hong Kong’s handover from Britain to China in 1997.
Critics, including the U.S. government, say their case reflects deteriorating media freedoms under a years-long national security crackdown in the China-ruled city.
Stand News, once Hong Kong’s leading online media with a mix of critical reportage and commentary, was raided by police in December 2021, and had its assets frozen, leading to its closure.
Chung, 54, Lam, 36, and the outlet’s parent company Best Pencil (Hong Kong) Ltd were all charged with conspiracy to publish seditious publications in connection with 17 news articles and commentaries between July 2020 and December 2021.
Chung and Lam had pleaded not guilty, with only Chung present in court on Thursday for the verdict. He edited or authorised most of the articles that the court found to be seditious.
“When speech is assessed as having seditious intent, the relevant actual circumstances must have been taken into consideration, being viewed as causing potential damage to national security, (and) must be stopped,” wrote district Court Judge Kwok Wai-kin.
During the 57-day trial, government prosecutor Laura Ng said Stand News had acted as a political platform to promote “illegal” ideologies and incited readers’ hatred against the Chinese and Hong Kong governments.
The articles deemed seditious by the court included commentaries written by exiled activists Nathan Law and Sunny Cheung, veteran journalist Allan Au, jailed former Apple Daily associate publisher and Chung’s wife Chan Pui-man.
‘REPORTED THE TRUTH’
Several international media freedom advocacy groups criticised this court’s ruling.
“This verdict is setting a very dangerous precedent that could be further used by Beijing to suppress any independent voices,” said Aleksandra Bielakowska, the Asia-Pacific advocacy manager for Reporters without Borders (RSF).
“Dozens of media have been shut down, numerous journalists went (into) exile, and others who remained in Hong Kong face a new reality where crossing red lines could be considered as breaching the national security laws,” she told Reuters.
A U.S. State Department spokesperson called the convictions a “direct attack on media freedom” that undermined the city’s “once-proud international reputation for openness.”
During the trial, Chung, who chose to testify in court, was in the witness box for 36 days, defending media freedoms and saying Stand News had only “recorded the facts and reported the truth”.
He said the site had simply sought to reflect a spectrum of voices including pro-democracy advocates.
Chung stressed that they upheld the principle of publishing every article they received to “showcase the greatest extent of freedom of speech”, as long as these articles did not incite violence, adversely affect the public and cause defamation.
Lam wrote in a mitigation letter that “the key to this case is press freedom and freedom of speech … the only way for journalists to defend press freedom is to report”.
(Reporting by James Pomfret and Jessie Pang; Additional reporting by Michael Martina in Washington Editing by Christian Schmollinger, Michael Perry, Helen Popper and Nick Zieminski)