Defunct Stand News was committed to documenting and reporting the truth, its former editor-in-chief told the court during its trial. Stand News, its former editor-in-chief Chung Pui-Kuen, and former acting editor-in-chief Lam Siu-tung are currently on trial after being charged under National Security Law with conspiring to publish inciting materials or publications. The Hong Kong National…

HONG KONG—A Hong Kong Court on Thursday rejected an application to terminate a sedition trial against now-defunct online pro-democracy media outlet Stand News, a case that could see two former top editors jailed if convicted. Former editors Chung Pui-kuen, 53, and Patrick Lam, 35, and the outlet’s parent company, Best Pencil (Hong Kong) Limited, have…

Chung Pui-kuen, former editor-in-chief of Stand News, which ceased operation at the end of 2021, was granted bail on Dec. 13. He was arrested at the end of December 2021 and held in custody for nearly a year. The prosecution submitted over 1,000 pages of undisclosed documents for the first time last month during Chung’s trial….

In the early morning of Dec. 29, 2021, Hong Kong National Security Bureau dispatched hundreds of police officers to search the Stand News Office. During their search, the police officers seized many news materials and froze the newspaper assets worth over $7.64 million (HK $60 million) Stand News ceased its operation the same afternoon after…

The trial of editors of the former Stand News began in Hong Kong on Oct. 31, 10 months after they were arrested and jailed. The three defendants were charged with conspiracy to publish and/or reproduce seditious articles from July 7, 2020 to Dec. 29, 2021. Stand News was founded in December 2014 in Hong Kong, during the…

World Press Freedom Day was celebrated on May 3. That same day, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the international non-governmental organization, released its 2022 World Press Freedom Index showing Hong Kong ranked at a record low. It had fallen the furthest of any country from 80th place last year to 148th place today. RSF’s 2022 edition of the…

HONG KONG—Hong Kong’s national security police arrested a veteran journalist and former contributing writer with the now-shuttered liberal media outlet Stand News, on Monday for alleged sedition, police and local media said. A crackdown on the media based on a sedition law that dates from the British colonial-era, as all as a Beijing-imposed national security…

HONG KONG—The first person convicted under Hong Kong’s national security law and jailed for nine years last July has dropped his decision to appeal, his lawyer said on Thursday. Former waiter Tong Ying-kit, 24, was found guilty of terrorist activities and inciting secession after driving his motorcycle into three riot police officers in 2020 while…

News Analysis The Fragrant Harbor’s last truly free media are falling one after another under the pressure of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Hong Kong police raided Stand News on Dec. 29. The leveling of the outlet, and the “voluntary” closure of Citizen News on Jan. 3, are two more nails in the coffin of…

Pro-Beijing Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam claimed that press freedom was still there in her city, after two local independent media outlets shut down in recent days, following a police clampdown against one of them in late December. “This morning I read news about, because of the closure of online medium, press freedom in Hong…