Two editors of the now-defunct News media organization, Chung Pui-kuen and Patrick Lam, may potentially be sentenced to a maximum of two years in prison.
Following the territory’s 1997 transfer from Britain to China, this is the first instance of sedition against a journalist in Hong Kong.
The district court judge who found the two guilty stated that their newspaper’s editorial stance backed “Hong Kong local autonomy”.
Judge Kwok Wai-kin stated that News was now a “danger to national security” in a written declaration.
In a written ruling, he claimed that “it even became a tool to smear and vilify the Central Authorities [in Beijing] and the [Hong Kong] SAR Government.”
During the 2019 pro-democracy demonstrations, News was one of a few relatively young internet news outlets that particularly rose to prominence.
However, a number of media publications in Hong Kong have shut down since the introduction of a contentious national security law, including the well-known anti-establishment newspaper Apple Daily. Jimmy Lai, the owner, was imprisoned in 2021.
Until being closed in December 2021, News was one of the few openly democratic magazines. Seven people were detained on charges of “conspiracy to publish seditious publications” in connection with the publication.
