Hong Kong police raid pro-democracy news outlet, arrest six

Hong Kong: Hundreds of Hong Kong national security police Wednesday raided the office of online pro-democracy media outlet Stand News, arresting six including senior staff for seditious publications.  

Established in 2014, Stand News is the most prominent pro-democracy publication in Hong Kong after a national security investigation this year led to the closure of jailed tycoon Jimmy Lai’s iconic Apple Daily tabloid. 

On Tuesday, prosecutors filed a “seditious publications” charge against Lai and six other former Apple Daily staff, adding to the earlier charges. The charge sheet said their publications could “bring into hatred or contempt” or “excite disaffection” against the Hong Kong and Chinese governments.

Police had not disclosed which Apple Daily or Stand News articles they considered seditious.

Subsequently, on early Wednesday, Hong Kong’s Police National Security Department said that it had arrested six current or former senior staff from an online media firm “for conspiracy to publish seditious publication”.

The raid further raises concerns about freedom of speech and that of the media in the former British colony, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997 with the promise that a wide range of individual rights would be protected. 

Reportedly, police had arrested three men and three women, while searches of their homes were under way.  

As per media reports, Patrick Lam, the chief editor of Stand News, was among those who were arrested.  

Lam was reportedly arrested by police in his home and several gadgets were also confiscated from him.

Sedition is not among the offenses listed under the sweeping national security law imposed by Beijing on the city in June 2020 that punishes terrorism, collusion with foreign forces, subversion and secession with possible life imprisonment.

But recent court judgments have freed authorities to use powers conferred by the new legislation to deploy previously sparsely used colonial-era laws including the Crime Ordinance, which covers sedition. 

Meanwhile, critics say the legislation is a tool to quash dissent and has set the global financial hub on an authoritarian path.

In June, hundreds of police raided the premises of Apple Daily, arresting executives on charges of “collusion with a foreign country.” 

The newspaper subsequently shut down after police froze its assets.