Hong Kong editors who face prison in sedition case told court about journalistic ideals

HONG KONG (AP) — Writing to the Hong Kong court that convicted him of sedition, former Stand News editor Patrick Lam said he regretted missing a chance to tell a police officer about independent journalism.

Lam and his ex-colleague Chung Pui-kuen, both former top editors of the now-shuttered Stand News, will learn their sentences Thursday after being found guilty last month in a landmark case widely seen as a barometer of media freedom in Hong Kong.

They were the first journalists to be convicted of sedition since the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997. They face up to two years in prison and a fine of 5,000 Hong Kong dollars (about $640) under a colonial-era sedition law that has been increasingly used to crush dissent.

Stand News was one of the last media outlets in the city that openly criticized the government as the authorities waged a crackdown on dissent following huge anti-government protests in 2019.

The online outlet, founded in 2014, emerged at a time when the city’s news industry was already facing increased censorship and interference, according to Lam’s mitigation letter, read out in court by his lawyer Audrey Eu in August.

Every journalist at Stand News sought to run a news outlet with complete editorial independence, Lam wrote, even in its final days.

“Our freedom was counting down. Every colleague was acutely aware. They chose to stay, quickened their pace and made use of every bit of space left in the narrow gap,” Lam said in the letter.

That gap slammed shut for Stand News in December 2021, just months after the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily was shut down. Its founder is fighting collusion charges under a national security law imposed by Beijing in 2020.

Police raided Stand