Verdict expected in trial against two Hong Kong journalists for sedition

HONG KONG — A verdict is expected Thursday in Hong Kong in a sedition case against two journalists who ran a defunct pro-democracy newspaper, a trial widely seen as a test of press freedom in the Chinese territory.

Chung Pui-kuen, the former editor-in-chief of Stand News, and Patrick Lam, the newspaper's former deputy editor-in-chief, have pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to publish seditious materials under a law dating back to the time when Hong Kong was a British colony.

Hong Kong authorities reinstated the sedition law as part of a broader crackdown on dissent after months of mass anti-government protests rocked the city in 2019. But it was the first time the law had been used against the media since 1997, when Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule on the condition that civil liberties such as press freedom would be preserved for 50 years.

The verdict, which will be handed down in October 2022, almost two years after the trial began, had already been postponed several times. Chung and Lam face up to two years in prison and fines of 5,000 Hong Kong dollars (about 640 dollars).

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Stand News has been closed since December 2021, when its office was raided by national security police and its assets frozen. Chung, Lam and five others were arrested the same day, although only Chung and Lam were later charged. The newspaper's parent company, Best Pencil (Hong Kong) Ltd., was also charged but was not represented at the trial.

Western politicians criticized the arrests and the closure at the time, including US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who said: “Journalism is not incitement.”

Stand News and other pro-democracy news outlets have been under pressure since June 2020, when Beijing enacted a sweeping national security law in response to protests the previous year. Although officials argue the law was necessary to restore stability, critics say the law and local national security laws enacted in March are being used to suppress dissent.

Many of Hong Kong's most prominent democracy activists have been arrested under the national security law, while others have withdrawn from politics or moved abroad. Dozens of civil society groups have also suspended their work, citing the insecurity as the reason.

The raid on Stand News followed the forced closure in June 2021 of Apple Daily, a popular pro-democracy newspaper whose founder Jimmy Lai, 76, faces charges of violating national security that could lead to a life sentence in prison. Another pro-democracy news outlet, Citizen News, cited the closure of Stand News when it shut down shortly afterward.

The decline in press freedom in Hong Kong is reflected in Reporters Without Borders' annual World Press Freedom Index: this year the city ranked 135th among 180 countries and territories, down from 70th in 2018.

In an annual press freedom survey released by the Hong Kong Journalists Association last week, media workers gave the city just 25 out of 100, the lowest score since the survey began in 2013. They were particularly concerned about the impact of the new local national security law, known as Article 23, which has been criticized for its vague wording.

The Hong Kong government says that while freedom of the press and freedom of expression remain protected by the city's mini-constitution and Bill of Rights, they are “not absolute.”

Stand News, founded in 2014, gained recognition in 2019 for its livestream coverage of the protests. Although government officials criticized the newspaper's coverage, Hong Kong residents ranked it among the city's most credible news outlets in 2019, according to a survey by researchers at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Prosecutors based their charges against Stand News on 17 articles published between July 2020 and December 2021 that they described as seditious, defined as articles that incite hatred or contempt against the Chinese central government, the Hong Kong government or the judiciary.

These included opinion pieces criticising the national security law, interviews with former pro-democracy lawmakers who now live in self-imposed exile and have a bounty on their heads, and profiles of three pro-democracy candidates awaiting sentencing in national security proceedings.

Chung and Lam's lawyers argued that they were reputable journalists reporting on issues that other Hong Kong news media also covered.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com.