First conviction for inciting riots since 1997: Hong Kong court finds two journalists guilty
Kyiv • UNN
Two editors of Stand News have been found guilty of incitement to sedition. This is the first such verdict against journalists since 1997, and they face up to two years in prison.
The editors-in-chief of the media outlet Stand News have been found guilty of inciting riots in Hong Kong. Writes UNN with reference to Rai News.
Details
On Thursday, two editors-in-chief of the former Stand News were convicted in Hong Kong for planning to publish so-called subversive articles. This is the first conviction for sedition against journalists since Hong Kong was handed over to China in 1997.
Two editors, 54-year-old Chun Pui-kuen and 36-year-old Patrick Lam, face up to two years in prison.
“The line adopted by (Stand News) was to support and promote local autonomy in Hong Kong. The newspaper even became a tool to vilify and denigrate the central government and the government of the Special Administrative Region,” the judge wrote in his verdict.
It is noted that the former editor-in-chief, Patrick Lam, was absent from the court hearings for health reasons.
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Stand News, once a leading online media outlet in Hong Kong, was raided by police in December 2021. Subsequently, it was shut down due to the arrest of its executives and the immediate freezing of its assets.
Hong Kong was handed over to China under a 1997 agreement with the United Kingdom on the condition that Hong Kong was established as a special region. It has partial autonomy under the motto “one country, two systems”. The agreement is valid until 2047.
China is accused of increasingly tightening its control over Hong Kong.
Large-scale protests began in June 2019 and subsided in 2020 after the authorities dispersed the demonstrations. At the same time, the coronavirus pandemic has led to a number of restrictions.
