China Finds Hong Kong Journalists Guilty Of Sedition For 2019 Protest Coverage

For the first time in the almost 30 years since China took Hong Kong, journalists have been found guilty of sedition.

Stand News was founded in 2014 at the outset of Hong Kong's Umbrella Revolution, a social movement demanding election transparency and named for the umbrellas protesters used to shield themselves from police pepper spray.

In 2019, when much larger protests broke out, the publication's popularity took off.

Breitbart News reports:

At its peak in 2019, Stand News reported more than 20 million page views per month. Fresh donations poured in, and the formerly shoestring website suddenly had more than 60 employees, but, then, the Chinese communist puppet government in Hong Kong decided to crush the pro-democracy movement and shut down its media organs.

It wasn't the only outlet of its kind, and when another was shut down, Stand News knew it was only a matter of time before the authorities came for then, but insisted on continuing their work for as long as they could.

Breitbart News continues:

Apple Daily, the enormously popular pro-democracy paper that billionaire Jimmy Lai founded, was among the first to fall. Stand News staffers said founder and chief editor Chung Pui-kuen remained committed to delivering the news, even though he knew the communists would be coming for him next.

Hong Kong police swarmed their office, seizing computers and arresting staff members. Even as the arrests were taking place, one reporter defiantly continued typing his last article until a police officer snatched his headphones off.

Breitbart News continued:

Within a few days, Stand News management decided to shut down the entire operation to spare its employees from further harassment and arrest. There was no saving Chung, now 54, who was found guilty of sedition on Thursday, along with his former acting editor-in-chief, Patrick Lam, 36, and Best Pencil Hong Kong, the holding company for Stand News.

Prosecutors claimed that by publishing 17 articles critical of the Chinese government, the editors had committed seditious acts, and the court concurred that 11 of the 14 articles were, in fact, “seditious.”

Breitbart News shared:

Chung and Lam are scheduled to be sentenced on September 26 and will be allowed bail until then. They were tried under a more lenient colonial-era law instead of the “national security law,” so they will face up to two years in prison for sedition instead of the ten years that the new law stipulates. They were both detained for almost a year after the December 2021 police raid on Stand News.

Lam maintains his principles in spite of his arrest and sentencing.

“I believe the main reason that Stand News could survive for seven years was because readers wanted to read the news that was truly not influenced by corporations, powers, or political parties…journalists do not have to be loyal to anyone, support anyone, or be enemies of anyone — and if we really have someone to be loyal to, it will be the public and only the public because we believe in freedom of the press and freedom of speech.”