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by James Pomfret and Joyce Zhou
HONG KONG, December 29 (Reuters) – Hundreds of police raided the offices of the pro-democracy news website Stand News on Wednesday and arrested six people working for the news outlet on “conspiring to publish seditious material “.
The police said in a statement authorized to “search and seize all relevant journalistic material”.
“More than 200 police officers took part in this operation. The searches are in progress,” he added.
Sedition is not a crime under the new national security law imposed by Beijing in 2020.
Recent court rulings in Hong Kong, however, give the authorities leeway to use provisions of the national security law for facts prior to its adoption – notably laws dating from the British colonial era affecting national security.
Pro-democracy activists see China’s imposed national security law as a way to silence dissenting voices and restrict freedoms in the special administrative region.
Local media reported that former Stand News board members Margaret Ng, former Democratic parliamentarian Denise Ho, singer, Chow Tat-chi and Christine Fang, as well as former editor-in-chief Chung Pui- kuen and acting editor Patrick Lam had been arrested.
Stand News posted a video on its website in which police could be seen arriving at the home of its deputy editor, Ronson Chan, also chairman of the Hong Kong Journalists Association.
Cable TV reported that Ronson Chan had not been arrested.
Police said in a separate statement that they had arrested three men and three women, aged 34 to 73, and that their homes were being searched.
A police spokesman present at the premises of Stand News said that access to the offices was prohibited due to an “operation in progress” and declined to give further details.
On Tuesday, Hong Kong prosecutors accused press mogul Jimmy Lai, already facing other charges under national security law and jailed for taking part in illicit gatherings, with “seditious publications”.
Jimmy Lai, 74, is the founder of the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, which ceased publication last June following searches by Hong Kong authorities which arrested executives and journalists from the Apple Daily and froze them. group assets. (With Edmond Ng, Sara Cheng, Jessie Pang, Donny Kwok and Marius Zaharia, edited by Tony Munroe and Marius Zaharia; French version Camille Raynaud)