Two Hong Kong day laborers will learn the outcome of their landmark sedition trial this week, a verdict that could determine the future of day labor in the Chinese city.
The journalists, Chung Pui-kuen and Patrick Lam, are former editors of independent news outlets. They could face up to two years in prison if found guilty under Hong Kong’s colonial-era sedition laws.
It was a duo. prisoner Hong Kong National Security Police in December 2021, along with five other officials and members of the Stand News Board, including Dennis isPop singer turned prominent pro-democracy activist, and Margaret Ng, a widely respected former politician and advocate.
Sedition laws were introduced in Hong Kong when it was a British colony, but they will lie dormant until 2020, when Peckham imposes new national security laws in response to months of anti-government protests the previous year.
In addition to new crimes such as “conluio con forças estrangeiras” or “subversion,” prosecutors have begun charging Hong Kong residents with the crime of “sedition” for the first time in more than fifty years.
Empora is not the first sedition ruling since the security law sparked political change, and Cheung Ee Lam's will be accompanied by Alberto's, as it will first be directly addressed as a media slam, according to a Hong Kong-based observer who has been following the case.
The monitor told Al Jazeera that he bases his decision on the definition of what constitutes “legitimate coverage” and what constitutes “incitement to hatred” against the government.
“Since we expect this to be the first lawsuit involving day labor, we can expect the judge to need to draw a line between what is considered day labor in oil and what is not, especially if he is indeed found guilty,” said the people, who asked not to be identified due to professional ramifications.
The promoters accuse Chung and Lam of conspiring to publish 17 seditious articles and opinion pieces criticizing the government and making Stand News a “political platform” rather than an independent communication channel. The articles included news about Hong Kong's pro-democracy camp and commentary from exiled political figures.
During the trial, defense lawyer Audrey Eu said that only Chung and Lam had not disclosed the articles to the investigation, because the prosecution failed to prove how they posed “any real risk to national security” or served as a political platform.
He said the media's work was in the public interest and that what he meant by the “fourth force” was to check the Hong Kong government in the hope that it would improve the government.
He also criticised the prosecution's erratic conduct during the trial, which included reliance on nearly 600 new pieces of evidence during various investigations and final arguments that were not presented before the trial began.
Eric Lai, a researcher at the Georgetown Center for Asian Research, notes: The Sedition The charges have had a 100 percent conviction rate since they were revived. He hopes that Chung and Lam, who spent a year in custody before being granted bail without starting court proceedings, will also be held accountable.
“I do not expect a rights-respecting outcome, given the illiberalism of Hong Kong court decisions since 2020. They do not value or balance the protection of basic human rights, such as freedom of expression and freedom of expression,” Lai told Al Jazeera, adding that expression is part of the government’s “very broad national security agenda.”
“silencing independent voices”
Situation news This slogan was issued after police raided your desktop computers in December 2021. The method of communication also excluded your online archive.
A relatively small canal has disappeared, or its rapid disappearance has had repercussions for people in Hong Kong, the latest sign that the city, once considered the freest in Asia, is about to change.
At the time of its creation, Stand News was one of the two most popular pro-democracy communication outlets still in use. Apple Daily The tabloid's history had been set six months earlier, after hundreds of national security police stormed the editorial office and arrested top executives of its founder Jimmy Lai.
The crackdown on Stand News has been criticized by human rights groups and some Western government officials, including US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who described the media outlets as “the two remaining bastions of free and independent media in Hong Kong.”
“By silencing independent media, the (Chinese) and local authorities are undermining Hong Kong’s credibility and viability,” Blinken said at the time. “A confident government that is not afraid of the truth embraces a free press.”
M ReplyLeader Carrie Lam denied at the time that it was midnight, and said releasing the prisoners would be against state rule.
The independent Citizen News communication channel, Pouco depois depois ao Stand News, also did so voluntarily, citing concerns about the “deteriorating media environment” in Hong Kong. These forums are followed by four other independent communication channels, according to media watchdog Repórteres Sem Fronteiras, which monitors Hong Kong’s media landscape.
The city's print freedom ranking dropped from 73rd out of 180 regions and countries in Reporters Without Borders' annual 2019 World Print Freedom Index to 135th last year, the logo above the South.
“Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China, once a bastion of press freedom, has suffered a series of unprecedented setbacks since 2020, when Beijing adopted a national security law aimed at silencing independent voices,” the social media watchdog said.
This is even more significant when measured in relation to 2002, five years after the transfer from Hong Kong to China in the first year that Reporters Without Borders compiled the index. At that time, Hong Kong was ranked 18th.
A foreign country also comes In motion Positions previously held in Hong Kong for places like South Korea and Taiwan.
Local and international communication means that remain at different times are found in their virtual areas.
By 2022, the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Hong Kong will be dismantled Human Rights Printing Awards For fear that they might “inadvertently” violate local laws regarding the repackaging of news with different features.
Since then, the awards have been transferred to Taiwan, along with many day laborers who earn their wages in East Asia.
No more past, Wall Street Journal Dimitrio Hong Kong correspondent Selena Cheng Shortly after being elected president of the Hong Kong Day Labourers' Association, Cheng was asked to resign or lose his position.
Cheng said the North American said its officials “should not be seen as advocates of press freedom in a place like Hong Kong.”
The group previously angered Hong Kong's security chief Chris Tang for “allying” himself with protesters in 2019. He also accused the organization of receiving funding from the US government.
The newspaper previously told Al Jazeera that Cheng's position became redundant when the job was moved to its Asian headquarters from Hong Kong to Singapore.
Meanwhile, the Hong Kong government has strengthened sedition laws, which it says are necessary to ensure that social media does not “put it in the background” of national security.
In April, the domestic version of the national security law, known as the Artego 23.
The new law adds a number of new crimes, including treason, subversion and espionage, and allows police to detain suspects for up to 16 days without charge. It also increases sedition by expanding its scope to include “incitement to hatred” against the Chinese Communist Party.
Maximum penalties are increased from a maximum of two years in prison to seven years, or 10 years in cases involving “external forces,” such as foreign governments, according to Amnesty International.
Hong Kong's leader, John Lee, said Artego 23, which the previous administration had to offer to stage mass protests, would further help protect the city from problems such as political unrest, sabotage and foreign infiltration.
The government claimed the provisions were similar to laws passed by Australia, the United Kingdom and Singapore to combat covert and overt foreign influence on their political systems.
Regina Ip, a pro-Bekem Legislative Council member in the city, said in an opinion piece published in the local newspaper South China Morning Post in April that Hong Kong has a “constitutional, legal and moral duty to safeguard national security” and has by no means been safe since it abandoned the legislation 27 years ago.
“Crimes such as treason, sedition, espionage and theft of state secrets have been in our laws for decades,” she wrote. “Many of the apparatuses are ineffective and outdated. For constitutional and practical reasons, Hong Kong needs to update existing laws.
