HONG KONG — Hundreds of
Hong Kong police officers arrested seven
people connected to an outspoken pro-democracy news website and raided the
site’s headquarters Wednesday, in yet another government crackdown on the
city’s once-vibrant independent press.
اضافة اعلان
Within hours, the site, Stand News, announced that it would shut
down immediately, and its website and social media pages would be deleted
within a day. All employees were dismissed.
“Stand News’ editorial policy was to be independent and
committed to safeguarding Hong Kong’s core values of democracy, human rights,
freedom, the rule of law and justice,” the announcement said. “Thank you,
readers, for your continued support.”
The seven were arrested on suspicion of conspiring to publish
seditious material, according to police. A senior official, Steve Li, accused
the publication at a news conference of publishing “inflammatory” content
intended to incite hatred toward the government and the judiciary, especially
through its coverage of the city’s fierce pro-democracy protests in 2019.
John Lee, Hong Kong’s No. 2 official, told reporters at a
separate news conference that journalism could not be used as a screen for
endangering national security.
“These are the bad apples who are abusing their position simply
by wearing a false coat of media worker,” he said when asked about Stand News.
“They are the people who damage press freedom. Professional media workers
should recognize this, say no to these people and stand far from them.”
Hong Kong officials have targeted critics across civil society,
including in the news media, since the Chinese Communist Party imposed a
national security law on the city in June 2020 to quell the fierce, at-times
violent protests in 2019.
Earlier this year, Apple Daily, perhaps the city’s best-known
pro-democracy newspaper, was forced to close after multiple police raids of its
newsroom and the arrests of several top editors and its founder, Jimmy Lai.
On Tuesday, Lai was charged with a new accusation of sedition
related to the newspaper, as were six other former senior employees. Lai, one
of Hong Kong’s most prominent opposition voices, had already been sentenced to
20 months in prison in relation to his support of the pro-democracy movement,
and he faces up to life in prison on other charges.
Officials have sent warning letters to news outlets about
coverage they dislike, and several foreign journalists have been denied visas
to work in the former British colony. The government has also announced plans
to enact a law against so-called fake news.
After Apple Daily folded, Stand News — which was founded as a
nonprofit in 2014 after an earlier round of mass pro-democracy protests that
year — became one of the city’s last openly pro-democracy outlets. Officials
made clear that it could be targeted next.
Hong Kong’s security secretary, Chris Tang, this month accused
the news site of “biased, smearing and demonizing” reports about conditions at
a prison. Lau Siu-Kai, an adviser to Beijing, was even more blunt, telling
Chinese state media that “the survival room” for opposition news outlets was
shrinking.
“Stand News will come into an end,” Lau said.
The arrests Wednesday began around 6 a.m., according to videos
and posts shared on Facebook, when officers arrived at the homes of current and
former Stand News staff members, including Ronson Chan, a deputy editor, and
Denise Ho, a popular local singer who had served on the organization’s board.
Around the same time, more than 200 officers entered the
publication’s headquarters in Hong Kong and conducted a search, police said.
Footage and photos reviewed by The New York Times showed officers stringing
orange tape across a hallway inside the office building, and wheeling suitcases
and boxes containing computers and other materials out of the newsroom. A photo
showed at least two dozen large blue plastic boxes stacked in the building’s
lobby.
Li, the police official, said authorities froze nearly $8
million in assets.
Six of those arrested were former or current senior staff
members of Stand News, police said, though they did not release names. The
footage reviewed by The Times showed Patrick Lam, the acting editor-in-chief,
being escorted from his home in handcuffs. Another arrested was Chung Pui-kuen,
a former editor-in-chief, according to Chan, the deputy editor, who spoke to
reporters after being questioned by police and then released.
Authorities did not specify the identity of the seventh person,
but local media reported that she was a former Apple Daily executive who had
also written for Stand News.
In addition to those arrests, police raided the residences of
four other employees, police said.
It was not immediately clear whether the outlet would face
charges under the national security law, which can carry severe sentences up to
life imprisonment. The sedition charge does not fall under the security law,
instead stemming from a colonial-era ordinance.
But the arrests were carried out by the national security
police, and the warrant for the newsroom raid was issued under the security
law, police said. And Li, the police official, said that Stand News’ articles
had aimed to incite secession, subvert state power or call on foreign
governments to impose sanctions on Hong Kong — all offenses under the security
law.
Legal experts said authorities were blurring the lines between
the security law and other criminal laws in Hong Kong, essentially allowing the
security law’s more sweeping provisions, such as stricter bail conditions, to
be used in more cases.
“The level of human rights protections, including the right to
fair trial, under the NSL is much lower,” said Senia Ng, a Hong Kong lawyer and
member of the opposition Democratic Party, using an acronym for the national
security law.
For many Stand News employees and in Hong Kong’s media sphere
more broadly, Wednesday’s crackdown, though expected, was still chilling.
The Hong Kong Journalists Association, a trade organization of
about 500 local journalists, said in a statement that it was “deeply concerned
that the police have repeatedly arrested senior members of the media and
searched the offices of news organizations containing large quantities of
journalistic materials within a year.”
The association has itself come under intense pressure from
authorities. Tang, the security secretary, accused it in September of
“infiltrating” campuses and leading student journalists astray.
Hong Kong officials have denied any crackdown on press freedom.
In an appearance at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Hong Kong in September,
Regina Ip, a pro-Beijing lawmaker, pointed to Stand News as proof that freedom
of speech was intact.
“The freedom of expression is still alive and well,” she said.
“Hong Kong Stand News, all these websites are still carrying on as usual.”
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