What a difference a jury makes

The Stand News case ends with both defendants found guilty of conspiring to publish ‘seditious’ material. NatSec Judge Kwok Wai-kin found 10 of 17 articles (listed here) to be seditious – op-eds written by various contributors…

“[Former chief editors Chung and Lam] knew of and agreed with the seditious intention of the articles. They provided Stand News as a publication platform” to incite hatred against Hong Kong and China, he wrote.

Kwok also ruled that Stand News had upheld a “localist” ideology and promoted the notion of “localist autonomy” for Hong Kong.

“It even became a tool to smear and slander the central and [Hong Kong] government” during the 2019 protests, Kwok wrote.

The WSJ reports…

Judge Kwok Wai-kin ruled that during the protests, Stand News “became a tool to smear and vilify” China’s government and the Hong Kong authorities.

…Hong Kong has also beefed up its sedition law as part of a package of national security laws this year, raising the maximum sentence to seven years, or 10 years in cases involving collusion with foreign forces.

…The bulk of the case against the Stand News editors relied on 17 articles, which were mostly about or written by opposition politicians who have since been arrested or gone into exile. The government has offered bounties for some of them, such as former lawmakers Ted Hui and Nathan Law, who now live overseas.

The prosecution later expanded its case to include hundreds more articles. The key question was whether a media outlet, by giving voice to a political opposition that has since been stamped out by a sweeping crackdown, simply informed the public or inflamed it to defy the authorities.

Chung, who agreed to testify at his trial, was questioned over articles that criticized government acts. Because the articles didn’t offer constructive solutions, prosecutors said they weren’t protected by Hong-Kong law that allowed criticism of official acts to correct mistakes.

AP piece on PK Chung.

Other international coverage from the BBC,  CNN, the NYT…

The two veterans of Hong Kong’s long boisterous news media scene didn’t shy away from publishing pro-democracy voices on their Stand News site, even as China cranked up its national security clampdown to silence critics in the city.

Then the police came knocking and, more than two and a half years later, a judge Thursday convicted the two journalists — the former editor in chief of Stand News, Chung Pui-kuen, and his successor, Patrick Lam — of conspiring to publish seditious materials on the now-defunct liberal news outlet. Both face potential prison sentences.

The landmark ruling highlighted how far press freedom has shrunk in the city, where local news outlets already self censor to survive and some foreign news organizations have left or moved out staff amid increasing scrutiny from the authorities.

During the trial, prosecutors characterized news articles and opinion pieces published by the two as biased against the government and a threat to national security. The articles were similar to those Stand News had been publishing for years. 

……The two editors have maintained their innocence. Mr. Chung said in his court testimony that they were operating within journalistic principles, to deliver stories with news value and of public interest.

“We didn’t have a hidden agenda, or any other goals that you couldn’t see,” he said in his testimony at the trial last year. “We saw very important events with a lot of public interest; we only wanted to document them.”

Former colleagues of Mr. Chung described him as a fearless leader and a fair-minded journalist who encouraged employees to seek out pro-Beijing politicians for interviews or opinion articles, even though those requests were regularly declined.

…and the Guardian… 

Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong, said the verdicts marked “a dark day for press freedom” in Hong Kong.

…Patten said: “The baseless allegations and verdict of this trial mark a further sinister turn for media freedom in Hong Kong, as it is clear that political commentary and opinion pieces may violate national security.”

Catherine West, the Foreign Office’s Minister for the Indo-Pacific, said on X: “The UK wants Hong Kong to succeed as a truly international city, with the free exchange of opinions and information. Hong Kong authorities should end politicised prosecutions of journalists”.

Matthew Miller, a spokesperson for the US state department, said that the verdict “is a direct attack on media freedom and undermines Hong Kong’s once-proud international reputation for openness.”

Stand News faced criticism from authorities but was seen by the population as one of the most credible Hong Kong outlets in 2019, according to surveys.

Statement from Reporters Without Borders, incuding a timeline of the arrests and trial.

The government issues a press release welcoming the decision…

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government spokesman said, “The conviction of all three defendants (i.e. the two editors-in-chief of Stand News, Chung Pui-kuen and Lam Shiu-tung, and the company which operated Stand News, Best Pencil (Hong Kong) Limited) signifies justice being firmly upheld. Any individual or organisation that incites hatred and engages in acts and activities endangering national security can never escape sanctions of the law, and such malicious acts will surely be duly punished.” 

From RTHK…

Speaking to reporters outside the court after the verdict, chief superintendent from the national security unit, Steve Li, said police welcomed the court’s decision.

“When the national security department took the enforcement against the Stand News on December 2021, some people criticised us that we are suppressing the freedom of the speech and the press,” he said.

“But the judge’s verdict has clearly illustrated the necessity and the lawfulness of the enforcement [action] taken on that day.”

Speaking to reporters at another event, Chief Secretary Eric Chan said authorities respected and valued media freedom, which is protected by law.

“If all journalists report based on facts, I think there would not be situations restricting the freedom of the press,” he explained.

HKFP’s story on  on the official response, also mentions the ‘verdict shows necessity’ comment and adds…

Asked outside the court about comments that the case could have consequences for press freedom, [Steve] Li said the verdict allowed the public to know “what problems we think may breach the law.”

“We are not saying what topics or cases cannot be reported on. We are not doing that,” he said in Cantonese. “But if they choose to use a seditious intention while reporting… this cannot be done. This could be sanctioned by the law.”

By contrast, the ‘Dragon Slayers’ terrorism trial had a jury, which found the seven defendants not guilty of the main charge of plotting to use bombs and firearms against police in December 2019, with one found guilty on a separate charge…

[An eighth] defendant, student Cheung Chun-fu, 24, was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment after pleading guilty in February to one count of possessing explosives, specifically two boxes of firecrackers, and one count of possessing arms without a license for four canisters of pepper spray.

…Under the current rule against double jeopardy, the Department of Justice is not allowed to file an appeal over the jury’s decision of one’s acquittal, to prevent the acquitted defendants from being tried again for the same offense.

The prosecution can leave legal questions arising from the trial to be decided by the Court of Appeal for a judgment that will be binding on future cases. Such judgment, however, will not affect the defendants’ acquittal at the Court of First Instance.

Biased media still exist in Hong Kong. LinguaSinica looks at CY Leung’s online platforms…

Speak Out HK (港人講地) and its parent organization Looop Media (圈媒體) are far from Hong Kong’s best-known media groups. But the online news outfit does enjoy one superlative: in 2019, in its first and only appearance in an annual survey on media reliability by the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Speak Out HK was ranked as the least-trusted news site in the whole territory. Across all mediums including print, radio, and television, its poor reputation was surpassed only by the state-run newspapers Ta Kung Pao (大公報) and Wen Wei Po (文匯報).