by Clare Jim and Sara Cheng
HONG KONG (Reuters) – Hong Kong justice on Thursday refused the release on bail of two officials of the pro-democracy outlet Stand News, accused of sedition, the day after the arrest of seven members of the news site.
On Wednesday, some 200 police officers raided the offices of Stand News, whose assets were frozen, and arrested seven of its members for “seditious publication”. The news site has since announced the cessation of its activities.
Former Stand News editor Chung Pui-kuen and acting editor Patrick Lam have been charged, along with Best Pencil Limited – the publisher of Stand News, according to the indictment. – for conspiracy to “disseminate and / or reproduce seditious publications”.
West Kowloon court rejected a bail application for the two men.
Four other members – former parliamentarian and lawyer Margaret Ng, pop star Denise Ho, Chow Tat-chi and Christine Fang – have been released under judicial supervision pending further investigation.
Chung Pui-kuen’s wife Chan Pui-man, former editor-in-chief of the pro-democracy Apple Daily, is the seventh member arrested. Her arrest was served on her in prison where she is already being held on several counts.
Reuters was unable to reach Best Pencil, any of the seven people arrested Wednesday – including Chung’s wife – or their legal representatives.
The Hong Kong executive defended the police operation.
“These acts have nothing to do with a so-called suppression of press freedom,” Chief Executive Carrie Lam said at a press conference.
“Journalism is not seditious, but seditious activities cannot be condoned under the guise of reporting,” she added.
This raid is the latest episode in the crackdown on independent media in the Chinese administrative region.
Stand News, founded in 2014, was Hong Kong’s last major pro-democracy media outlet since the shutdown last June of the Apple Daily tabloid controlled by jailed businessman Jimmy Lai.[nL5N2O338Q]
France, through its Ministry of Foreign Affairs, expressed its concern at “these developments, which follow the disappearance of the Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily this summer and the conviction of its founder Jimmy Lai.”
It calls “for the respect of the principle of ‘one country, two systems’ and of the Basic Law of Hong Kong, which guarantees the high degree of autonomy of the territory and the respect of fundamental freedoms”.
(Report Clare Jim, written by Marius Zaharia; French version Camille Raynaud and Dina Kartit, edited by Sophie Louet)