A Hong Kong court has found two editors at the shuttered Stand News media outlet guilty of sedition. It is the first sedition conviction of journalists since the territory was handed back to China from Britain in 1997.
Two former editors at Hong Kong’s now-defunct Stand News media outlet were on Thursday found guilty of conspiring to publish seditious material, a crime that could carry a maximum jail term of two years.
The case is seen as indicative of the future of media freedom in the city under Chinese rule, to which it returned in 1997.
Stand News was one of the last media outlets in the city to openly criticize the government amid a crackdown on dissent that followed massive pro-democracy protests in 2019.
The two convicted journalists, Stand News former editor-in-chief Chung Pui-kuen and former acting editor-in-chief Patrick Lam were arrested in December 2021.
Former bastion of media freedom
Thursday’s landmark convictions come amid growing restrictions on freedom of expression in the former British colony under Beijing’s control.
The city, once seen as one of the world’s freest places for the media, has dropped from 18th place in 2002 to 135th this year in a global media freedom index by Reporters without Borders.
Stand News had its offices raided and assets frozen in late 2021 under a draconian security law imposed by Beijing to repress dissent.
