Responding to the jail sentences for \u201csedition\u201d handed to two former editors at the defunct Hong Kong media outlet Stand News, Amnesty International\u2019s China Director Sarah Brooks said: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe jailing of two journalists simply for doing their job makes this another bleak day for press freedom in Hong Kong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe fact they are the first journalists to be sentenced to jail on colonial-era \u2018sedition\u2019 charges since before the Hong Kong handover of 1997 indicates that there has rarely been a more dangerous time to work in media in the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cJust like the numerous other \u2018sedition\u2019 and national security convictions of activists, teachers and lawyers that we have seen in Hong Kong in recent years, today\u2019s sentencing looks designed to reinforce a \u2018chilling effect\u2019 that dissuades others in the city \u2013 and beyond \u2013 from criticizing the authorities. It is rule by fear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOnce again, we urge the Hong Kong authorities to stop using \u2018sedition\u2019 and other national security-related laws as a pretext to crack down on press freedom and other human rights. The two journalists sentenced today have committed no internationally recognized crime and their convictions should be quashed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stand News\u2019 former chief editor Chung Pui-kuen was today sentenced to 21 months in jail and former acting chief editor Patrick Lam was sentenced to 11 months after they were convicted last month of conspiring to publish seditious publications under Hong Kong\u2019s sedition law. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both journalists already spent almost a year in pre-trial detention, meaning Lam will not be returned to jail whereas Chung will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The prosecution against the journalists, along with Stand News\u2019 parent company Best Pencil (Hong Kong) Limited, was based on 17 allegedly seditious articles, including news reporting, interviews, profiles, and opinion pieces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stand News, a non-profit digital news outlet, ceased operations and deleted its website in December 2021 after its newsroom was raided by over 200 national security police officers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The trial began in October 2022 and its conclusion was postponed numerous times prior to the courts issuing a long-awaited verdict last month; the sentencing was delayed an additional three weeks, until today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Stand News case is the first trial for sedition \u2013 and the first national-security related conviction \u2013 of a media company and individual journalists since before 1997, when Hong Kong was handed over from Britain to China.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Responding to the jail sentences for \u201csedition\u201d handed to two former editors at the defunct Hong Kong media outlet Stand News, Amnesty International\u2019s China Director Sarah Brooks said: \u201cThe jailing of two journalists simply for doing their job makes this another bleak day for press freedom in Hong Kong. \u201cThe fact they are the first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":26536,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-title":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-description":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-image":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-image-id":0,"_yoast_wpseo_twitter-title":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-description":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-image":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-image-id":0,"recipients":"","recipients_refresh":"","recipients_refreshed":"","_hero_title":"","_hero_content":"","_hero_cta_text":"","_hero_cta_link":"","_hero_alignment":"","_hero_background":"","_hero_size":"","_hero_show":"","_hero_type":"","_hero_embed":"","_hero_video_id":0,"_hero_hide_image_caption":true,"_hero_hide_image_copyright":false,"_nav_style":"","_disable_share_icons":false,"_disable_sidebar":false,"_display_author_info":false,"_hide_featured_image":false,"_hide_featured_image_caption":true,"_maximize_post_content":false,"_reduce_content_width":false,"_sidebar_id":0,"_stretch_thumbnail":false,"byline_context":"","byline_entity":"","byline_is_author":false,"disable_related_content":false,"download_id":0,"download_text":"","show_published_date":true,"show_updated_date":true,"term_slider":"","amnesty_index_number":"","document_ref":"","amnesty_updated":"","amnesty_umbraco_data":"","footnotes":""},"category":[1711],"location":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-26595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-freedom-of-expression"],"datePosted":"September 26, 2024","mlpRelationships":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category?post=26595"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=26595"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=26595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}