離開
進入《TAIPEI TIMES》 HK’s last major democracy outlet shuts
Acting Stand News editor-in-chief Patrick Lam is brought to the news outlet’s offices in handcuffs in Hong Kong’s Kwun Tong District yesterday. Photo: AFP
FREEDOMS CRACKDOWN: Stand News shut just hours after more than 200 police raided its newsroom, froze about US$7.8 million of assets and arrested seven people
/ Bloomberg
Stand News, Hong Kong’s biggest remaining pro-democracy news outlet, yesterday announced on Facebook that it would immediately lay off all staff and cease operations, and take down its Web site and social media accounts within days.
The move came hours after more than 200 police raided the outlet’s newsroom, froze about HK$61 million （US$7.8 million） of assets and arrested seven people connected to it on a colonial-era sedition law.
Those arrested included acting Stand News editor-in-chief Patrick Lam （林紹桐） and Denise Ho （何韻詩）, a pop star who had testified about Hong Kong before the US Congress.
Stand News had briefly been the largest Chinese-language media outlet publishing coverage critical of the Hong Kong government after Apple Daily’s closure in July under pressure from a similar probe.
The site had braced for police scrutiny, announcing in June that it would purge opinion pieces from its Web site, and stop accepting subscriptions and sponsorships.
The sudden fall of Stand News is the latest in a series of devastating blows this year to Hong Kong’s once-vibrant opposition, including the arrests of scores of prominent democracy advocates and the election of new Legislative Council vetted by Beijing.
The campaign has remade Hong Kong as it prepares to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Chinese rule — halfway through Beijing’s promise to leave the territory’s basic policies “unchanged for 50 years.”
“A vibrant and trustworthy global financial hub requires creativity, transparency of information, and plurality of opinions,” said Eric Lai （黎恩灝）, a Hong Kong law fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Asian Law. “Hong Kong will eventually lose these core elements when protection of free speech becomes lip service.”
Those arrested yesterday were detained on a once-little-used sedition law dating back to 1938 that still refers to “Her Majesty” and “the Crown.” Hong Kong authorities have seized on the powerful law to prosecute opposition figures in addition to the four crimes outlined in the National Security Law.
Others arrested yesterday for conspiring to “publish seditious materials” included former Stand News editor-in-chief Chung Pui-kuen （鍾沛權）, and former board members Margaret Ng （吳靄儀）, Chow Tat-chi （周達智） and Christine Fang （方敏生）, the South China Morning Post reported.
The sedition offense carries a maximum sentence of two years in prison and a HK$5,000 fine.
A Global Times article cited unnamed observers who hailed the arrest of Ho as the “best Christmas present,” saying that those arrested had been working with the US to destabilize Hong Kong.
The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned yesterday’s raid.
“Authorities must release the six and drop all charges against them immediately, if Hong Kong is to retain any semblance of the freedoms that its residents enjoyed only a few years ago,” the group’s Asia program coordinator Steven Butler said.
With the closure of Stand News, only a handful of independent outlets remain, including the English-language Hong Kong Free Press.
Public broadcaster Radio Television Hong Kong has had hard-hitting programs canceled and former staff members have accused the organization of purging voices critical of the government.
Hong Kong Chief Secretary John Lee （李家超）, a former police official who was earlier this year promoted to the territory’s No. 2 post, dismissed concerns that local media are under political pressure, telling reporters that those who used the media to pursue political goals were the “evil elements” damaging freedom of the press.
“Professional media workers should recognize that these are the bad apples who are abusing their position by wearing a false coat of media worker,” Lee said.
In Taipei, the Mainland Affairs Council yesterday condemned the Hong Kong government for human rights violations, saying that recent events “revealed the lie behind communist China’s slogan of ‘one country, two systems.’”
Citing the detention of the Stand News staff and imprisonment of Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai （黎智英）, the council said in a news release that “any intelligent observer would conclude ... that nothing short of a literary inquisition is being conducted.”
China’s defenders should stop being the enablers and accomplices of Beijing’s bad behavior, it said.
Despite guarantees in the Basic Law for freedom of speech and freedom of the press, recent incidents show that human rights in Hong Kong are in free fall, it said.
新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES
Hong Kong activist Denise Ho, center, speaks as she is joined by members of US Congress during a news conference on Hong Kong Human Rights on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2019. According to the local South China Morning Post newspaper, Hong Kong police arrested Wednesday, Dec. 29, 2021, one current and one former editor at Stand News, as well as four former board members including singer and activist Denise Ho. Photo: AP
