Two reporters who ran a Hong Kong pro-democracy news have been found guilty of rebellion.
Chung Pui-kuen and Patrick Lam, two reporters at the now-defunct Stand News media outlet, was then face a peak prison term of two decades.
This is the first journalist-related rebellion event to take place in Hong Kong since 1997 when it was handed over from the UK to China.
Their newspaper’s journal range supported” Hong Kong native autonomy”, according to the district court judge who found the pair innocent.
In a written statement, Judge Kwok Wai-kin said that Stand News had become a “danger to regional security”.
” It even became a tool to smear and vilify the Central Authorities]in Beijing ] and the] Hong Kong ] SAR Government”, he said in a written judgement.
Stand News was one of a few relatively innovative online media sources that gained traction particularly during the 2019 pro-democracy demonstrations.
However, a number of internet stores have closed in Hong Kong since the passage of a contentious national security law, including the well-known anti-establishment publishing Apple Daily. Jimmy Lai, its proprietor, was sentenced to prison in 2021.
Stand News was one of the final openly pro-democratic papers ever to be shut down in December of that year, when seven people were detained and accused of a” crime to publish seditious papers.”
Westward nations have criticized the event and given it a lot of international scrutiny.
The United States has consistently criticized the Hong Kong journalists ‘ trials, claiming that the situation involving the two reporters” creates a chilling effect on others in the media and media.”