A Hong Kong court will deliver its verdict on Thursday in the sedition trial of two former editors of independent news site Stand News that journalists in the city view as an important test of the limits of press freedom and the independence of the judiciary.
Patrick Lam and Chung Pui-kuen are charged with conspiring to publish and reproduce seditious publications to damage the central Chinese government, the local administration and the National Security Law imposed by Beijing in 2020.
They were arrested in December 2021 after police raided the offices of Stand News and the homes of seven of its journalists and the online newspaper ceased operations immediately afterwards. The charges centre on the publication of 17 articles critical of Beijing and the Hong Kong government, although the prosecution asked for 587 other articles to be taken into account as evidence of Stand News’s anti-government bias.
Eight of the 17 articles are news reports, including interviews with and profiles of democracy activists and nine were opinion pieces in the form of blog posts. The prosecution said that by publishing the pieces, Stand News was providing a platform for " extremist and anti-government” positions.
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During the trial, Mr Chung defended the decision to publish the opinion pieces by anti-government politicians, arguing that he had no reason to censor their comments.
“Rather than restricting free speech in the name of eradicating dangerous ideologies, one should eradicate dangerous ideologies by exercising free speech. Substantial freedom of speech is most beneficial to society,” he told the court.
Mr Chung rejected the prosecution’s claim that a call in one of the blog posts for activists to defend “the Hong Kong nation” amounted to advocating independence from Beijing. And he said that journalists should not be punished for reporting accurately opinions expressed by others.
“A media organisation should report facts, including radical stances, as long as they concern the public interest, what the public wants to know and needs to know, even if those viewpoints include Hong Kong’s independence,” he said.
Founded in 2014, Stand News surged in popularity during the 2019 protests in Hong Kong when it broadcast live streams from the demonstrations. Generally seen as a reliable source of news, it won praise from pro-government commentators as well as democracy activists for the balanced nature of its coverage.
The newspaper continued to publish after the imposition in 2020 of the National Security Law, which effectively snuffed out political opposition in Hong Kong and saw the arrest and imprisonment of dozens of democracy activists. But its coverage of government critics angered senior figures in the local administration.
It was the most prominent independent news outlet in the city following the closure of businessman Jimmy Lai’s Apple Daily in June 2021. Mr Lai (76) has been in prison for 3½ years, most of it in solitary confinement, as he faces charges under the National Security Law.
Hong Kong operates a common law system with an independent judiciary, although judges in trials related to national security must be approved by the government. Earlier this year, former British supreme court judge Jonathan Sumption resigned as an overseas judge of the court of final appeal, saying that only lip-service is paid to constitutional guarantees of free speech and freedom of assembly.
“Hong Kong, once a vibrant and politically diverse community, is slowly becoming a totalitarian state. The rule of law is profoundly compromised in any area about which the government feels strongly,” he wrote in the Financial Times.
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