Hong Kong Editors Convicted of Sedition in Blow to Press Freedom

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. But after the authorities crushed protests that rocked the city in 2019, China imposed a national security law, and tolerance for dissent in the city’s freewheeling media began to evaporate.

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.”