About 200 Hong Kong police stormed native pro-democracy news media outlet Stand News in the early morning today, arresting six staff for allegedly publishing stories in opposition to the state following the huge and frequently violent democratic protests two years in the past.
Stand News interim editor-in-chief Patrick Lam was amongst those that received arrested, together with Hong Kong pop diva Denise Ho, barrister Margaret Ng, Christine Fang, and Chow Tat-chi, in addition to 4 former board members.
The nationwide security police have additionally confiscated journalistic supplies with permission from the courtroom.
Although Class full was investigated earlier that morning for accusations of conspiracy to print dissenting articles under a British colonial-era offence, he was not arrested.
However, the outlets’ ex-chief editor, Chung Pui-Kuen, was arrested after police searched his house.
Stand News, which was chastised by authorities for publishing stories about prison conditions earlier this month, became the second Hong Kong media outlet to face repression after Apple Daily, which shut down in 2020 after its assets have been frozen under national safety law.
Hong Kong has traditionally been a regional media centre, but as Beijing exercises higher authority over the city, it has slipped down the press freedom rankings in recent times.
According to exiled campaigner Nathan Law, the arrests highlight the government’s harassment of journalists and media shops for not telling the reality to the world.
In an announcement at present, the Asia Program Coordinator on the Committee to Protect Journalists, Steven Butler, said…
“The arrests of six people related to Stand News amounts to an open assault on Hong Kong’s already tattered press freedom, as China steps up direct management over the former colony.”g