Trial of two journalists for sedition seen as a blow to Hong Kong's press freedom

HONG KONG – Two journalists who ran a pro-democracy newspaper in Hong Kong were convicted of sedition on Thursday, a verdict that could have profound implications for press freedom in the Chinese territory.

Chung Pui-kuen, the former editor-in-chief of the now-defunct Stand News, and Patrick Lam, the newspaper's former acting editor-in-chief, had pleaded not guilty and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to publish seditious materials under a law dating back to the time when the city 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.

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

A judge ruled on Thursday that 11 of these 17 articles had “seditious intent.”

“The court found that the political climate at the time of the crime was extremely heated and a large part of the public was dissatisfied with or even opposed to the Hong Kong government and the Chinese central government,” District Judge Kwok Wai-kin, who was personally selected by Hong Kong's supreme ruler to preside over the trial, said in his ruling.

The verdict, which will be handed down in October 2022, almost two years after the trial began, had already been postponed three times. Chung and Lam, who both spent almost a year in pre-trial detention, face up to two years in prison and fines of 5,000 Hong Kong dollars (about $640).

Read more about NBC News' coverage from Hong Kong

Stand News has been shut down and its online content deleted 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 after protests that sometimes turned violent, 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 a large audience in 2019 with 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.

The 17 articles at issue in the Stand News case include opinion pieces criticising the national security law, interviews with former pro-democracy lawmakers who are now in self-imposed exile and have a bounty on their heads, and profiles of three pro-democracy candidates awaiting sentencing in a national security case.

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

Since the national security law came into force in 2020, journalists in Hong Kong have struggled to determine which topics they can safely report on, says Aleksandra Bielakowska, a Taiwan-based advocacy officer for Reporters Without Borders.

“It was very difficult for them to say what might prompt the authorities or the national security police to prosecute them, arrest them or basically even threaten them by other means,” she told NBC News.

With the conviction of Chung and Lam, the 17 articles on which the case was based would serve as a warning to other journalists about which people and topics could pose a danger to them, Bielakowska said.

“This process basically sets the new ground rules,” she said. “It really shows where the red lines might be in the future.”

Penalties for sedition were toughened in March by the National Security Law, which Hong Kong's opposition-free parliament passed and replaced the colonial-era Sedition Law. Under the new law, the maximum penalty for sedition is now 10 years in prison, up from two.

Bielakowska said Thursday's conviction of Chung and Lam “could open the door for Hong Kong authorities” to use the sedition sections of Article 23 of the law “as another tool to fundamentally threaten and prosecute journalists and media workers who attempt to report on issues that are not in line with the authorities' wishes.”