Explainer: Hong Kong’s national security crackdown – month 50
Hong Kong Free Press
In August, 50 months since Beijing imposed a security law on Hong Kong, two former editors of shuttered online media Stand News became the first journalists found guilty of sedition in the city since it was returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
Additionally, people charged with sedition under Hong Kong’s new security law appeared in court; an elderly busker was jailed over performances of protest anthem Glory to Hong Kong; and Bloomberg reported that one of its journalists had been denied a visa to work in Hong Kong.
Stand News editors found guilty of sedition
Stand News’ former editor-in-chief Chung Pui-kuen, 54, and former acting editor-in-chief Patrick Lam, 36, were found guilty of sedition on August 29, marking the first such conviction of journalists in Hong Kong since the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
“The court rules that the political atmosphere was extremely heated at the time of the case. Many residents were dissatisfied with or even opposing the [Hong Kong] and [central] governments,” national security judge Kwok Wai-kin wrote in a Chinese-language judgement, “Under such context, the court found 11 out of the 17 articles to be seditious.”
During the trial, which began in October 2022, the prosecution presented 17 articles published by Stand News as evidence that Chung, Lam and Stand News’ parent company had taken part in a conspiracy to publish and reproduce seditious materials. The pair were detained for nearly a year following their arrests in December 2021. They were granted bail after the trial began.
Chung and Lam, who were each detained for almost a year until being granted bail after the trial began, face up to two years in jail. The sedition offence previously fell under the city’s colonial-era Crimes Ordinance but has been replaced by new security legislation enacted in March that raises the maximum penalty for sedition to up to 10 years in jail.
Condemnation of verdict meets with criticism
Multiple NGOs, a press union, and representatives of the EU, UK and US slammed the guilty verdicts in the Stand News trial, calling them a blow to the city’s press freedom.
Those comments were quickly met with condemnation from Beijing, which said that freedom of the press could not be “an excuse for committing crimes.”
Hong Kong 47 mitigation hearings resume
In late August, the court resumed mitigation hearings for the landmark national security case involving 47 Hong Kong democrats after proceedings were delayed by almost a month due to “unforeseen circumstances.”
On August 26, seven democrats presented their mitigation pleas: veteran activist and former lawmaker “Long Hair” Leung Kwok-hung, ex-social worker and lawmaker Andrew Wan, ex-Civic Party lawmaker Kwok Ka-ki, ex-lawmaker Eddie Chu, activist Wong Ji-yuet, former district councillor Sam Cheung, and former district councillor Ng Kin-wai.
On August 27, ex-union leader Carol Ng, ex-district councillor Roy Tam, former district councillor Ricky Or submitted their mitigation pleas.
The last batch of defendants, including journalist-turned-activist Gwyneth Ho, will enter their mitigation pleas in the first week of September.
Landmark sedition appeal to go to apex court
On August 14, Hong Kong’s top court gave the green light to detained pro-democracy activist Tam Tak-chi, who was fined and jailed for 40 months over 11 charges, to challenge his conviction and sentence under a since-repealed sedition law next January.
The landmark appeal will mark the first time the sedition law is challenged in a Court of Final Appeal. Tam was the first person to stand trial for sedition since the 1997 Handover.
Article 23: ‘Seditious’ bus graffiti
Chung Man-kit, who was the third person charged under Hong Kong’s new security law, appeared in court on August 22, when his lawyer said that Chung would enter a plea next month and that the case was not expected to go to trial.
The 29-year-old was charged under the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, enacted in March and known locally as Article 23, which raised the maximum penalty for sedition from two years in prison to seven.
Chung has been detained pending trial since he first appeared in court on June 25. He faces three counts of “doing with a seditious intention an act or acts that had a seditious intention” and two counts of “destroying or damaging property” over graffiti written on bus seats.
Elderly busker jailed over protest anthem
Li Jiexin, an elderly busker, was sentenced to two weeks in jail on August 7 over unlicensed public performances of the protest anthem Glory to Hong Kong.
Li’s conviction marked the second time he had been jailed over unlicensed performances, both times involving the song popularised during the pro-democracy protests in 2019.
Li was last October sentenced to 30 days in prison for unlicensed performances and fundraising after playing Glory to Hong Kong in public, an act that was branded at the time as “soft resistance” by Magistrate Amy Chan.
Article 23: ‘Seditious’ T-shirt
Chu Kai-pong, 27, who has been charged with sedition under Article 23 over wearing a T-shirt with a protest slogan on it, told a court on August 8 that he intended to plead guilty. He faces one count of “doing with a seditious intention an act or acts that had a seditious intention,” under the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance.
Chu was arrested on June 12 after being intercepted by police near Shek Mun MTR station, and was the first person charged with allegedly violating Article 23, according to HKFP’s records.
He was wearing a top and a mask printed with statements that were allegedly intended to incite hatred, contempt or disaffection against the “fundamental system of the state established by the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China,” according to a police statement.
Press freedom in further decline
Hong Kong press freedom fell further according to a survey of media workers in the city announced on August 20. Journalists surveyed separately said that the recently enacted security law had “significantly impacted” the industry.
According to the results of the Hong Kong Journalists Association’s annual press freedom index, the rating recorded by reporters was just 25 out of 100, the lowest since the survey was first conducted in 2013.
Reporter denied Hong Kong visa
Bloomberg told its staff on August 19 that Chinese journalist Haze Fan has been refused a visa to work at their Hong Kong bureau, HKFP learned. Fan, who was previously detained in China, instead resumed duties in London.
According to a Bloomberg terminal notice to staff obtained by HKFP, the outlet had hoped to relocate Fan to its Hong Kong bureau. “But the immigration authorities declined to issue her a visa, without explanation,” the notice from Bloomberg’s Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait read.
The Immigration Department said it “will not comment on individual cases” when approached about the case by HKFP.
British CFA judge faces criticism
A British judge who sits on Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal faced calls to step down after ruling against an appeal by seven prominent pro-democracy figures – among them detained media tycoon Jimmy Lai – to overturn their convictions for taking part in an unauthorised assembly in 2019.
Lai, who has also been charged under the Beijing-enacted legislation, is serving a prison term of five years and nine months for fraud over violating the lease agreement for the headquarters of defunct pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily.
Hong Kong’s last colonial governor Chris Patten said the appeal judgement demonstrated that rule of law was deteriorating in Hong Kong, according to British newspaper The Guardian. “This unjust verdict is made worse by the fact that Lord [David] Neuberger, a former head of Britain’s supreme court, was a party to this decision,” Patten was quoted as saying.
The Hong Kong government hit back at Patten, saying his “criticisms against Lord Neuberger NPJ who handled the relevant case were completely groundless and unjustified personal attacks aiming to smear and slander the NPJ’s reputation.”
Separately, Neuberger withdrew from an advisory board to an international press freedom NGO, in part “because of concern expressed abou[his] position as a non-permanent Judge in Hong Kong.”
New national security exhibition
A national security exhibition opened at the Hong Kong Museum of History on August 7, featuring installations dedicated to Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s ideas of governance, and a lunar soil sample collected during a China National Space Administration mission.
Foreign visitors who attended the exhibition told HKFP that an installation dedicated to the pro-democracy protests and unrest in 2019 presented a different narrative about events that year than the one they had learned through international media.
Latest prosecution and arrest figures
As of August 1, a total of 301 people had been arrested for “cases involving suspected acts or activities that endanger national security” since Beijing’s national security law came into effect. The number includes those arrested under Article 23, known officially as the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance.
Of the 176 people and five companies who have so far been charged, 157 have been convicted or are awaiting sentencing. Among them, 76 have been convicted or are awaiting sentencing under the national security law.
“As revealing specific arrest figures and information related to these activities could have an impact on operational deployment, no breakdown of the arrest statistics would be disclosed to the public,” the Security Bureau added.
HKFP has reached out to the Security Bureau for updated figures.
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https://hongkongfp.com/2024/09/01/explainer-hong-kongs-national-security-crackdown-month-50/