Another attack on independent media in Hong Kong
“2021 is the year of silence. Some slogans can no longer be shouted, some movies cannot be released, some concerts cannot be opened, some books have been removed from the library shelves and the old radio television hong kong has been castrated and collapsed… after the silence, all that remains, in addition to fear and silence is…wish.”
The quote is from one of the last texts, headlined 2021 Forbidden Words, published by independent news website Stand News in Hong Kong shortly before police raided the news outlet. Six of its members are reported to have been arrested. The website on Facebook announced that it is closing its operations
Stand News has been one of the last major independent news outlets in Hong Kong since Jimmy Lai’s Apple Daily newspaper was forced to close last summer after Lai himself and several of his staff were jailed.
The six at Stand News – three women and three men – were formally arrested for “conspiracy to publish seditious publications”.
Hong Kong Free Press and the South China Morning Post reported police saying the raid was authorized under the 2020 national security law.
The reports identified those arrested as deputy assignment editor Ronson Chan, acting chief editor Patrick Lam, former editor-in-chief Chung Pui-kuen, and former director and chief science editor Chow Tai-chi.
The other two arrested, singer Denise Ho and lawyer Margaret Ng, are former members of Stand News’s board, the reports said. Chan chairs the Hong Kong Journalists Association.
More than 200 police officers were sent to raid the publication’s office.
Police said in a statement that they were authorised to “search and seize relevant journalistic materials”.
Chief Secretary of police John Lee was quoted saying at a press conference there would be “zero tolerance of behaviour that threatens national security”.
“Making use of media work as a tool to pursue their political purpose or other interests contravenes the law, particularly offences that endanger national security. They are the evil elements that damage press freedom.”
Steven Butler, Committee to Protect Journalists’s Asia program coordinator said:
“The arrests of six people associated with Stand News amounts to an open assault on Hong Kong’s already tattered press freedom, as China steps up direct control over the former colony. 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.”
Hong Kong authorities have been increasingly cracking down on protesters and democracy activists following a new national security law.
Non-profit Stand News was founded in December 2014. Reports say that police after the raid has frozen the company’s assets in a way similar to how the Daily Apple was attacked and forced to stop publication.
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