The first convictions of journalists have been handed down

This is the first conviction for “sedition” since the former British colony was handed back to China in 1997. On Thursday, August 29, Hong Kong courts found guilty two former editors of the now-closed Stand News news site. This type of conviction is also the first in the context of the crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in 2019.

The court found former editors Chung Pui-kuen and Patrick Lam guilty of “conspiracy to publish and reproduce seditious content”The company that publishes the site, Best Pencil Limited, was also found guilty of sedition. “The line adopted [par Stand News] was to support and promote Hong Kong’s local autonomy”the judge wrote in his verdict. “It has even become a tool for defamation and denigration of the central authorities [Pékin] and the government of the Special Administrative Region” from Hong Kong, he added.

Stand News, a popular news portal founded in 2014 that provided extensive and often favorable coverage of the 2019 pro-democracy movement, shut down in 2021 after police raided its offices, arrested its executives, and froze its assets.

Chung Pui-kuen and Patrick Lam, aged 36 and 54 respectively, were released on bail pending a full trial on September 26. They face a maximum sentence of two years in prison under a 1938 law.