HONG KONG — Hong Kong police said they arrested six current and former executives from an online media outlet in predawn raids on Wednesday for conspiracy to publish “seditious” material, the latest assault on the once-free press in the Chinese territory.
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The police did not name the outlet or the individuals, but they were identified by local media as executives from Stand News, among Hong Kong’s last independent news outlets. The publication was nominated this year for the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Prize.
Those arrested include the acting chief editor Patrick Lam, along with the singer Denise Ho and the lawyer and former lawmaker Margaret Ng, who were both former board members of Stand News. Police also detained Ronson Chan, Stand News’s deputy assignment editor, who is the chair of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, to assist with the investigation, local media reported. Chan tried to live-stream the raid when police arrived at his door, until officers told him to stop.
More than 200 police officers were also deployed to Stand News’s offices with a warrant that allowed them to search and seize any journalistic materials.
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The sweep intensifies pressure on the press in Hong Kong as Beijing overhauls institutions in the territory, including schools and the legislature, to bring them in line with the repressive conditions on the Chinese mainland.
Earlier this year, Hong Kong’s most-read newspaper, the pro-democracy Apple Daily, was forced to close after police arrested its executives and froze its assets. Apple Daily’s founder, Jimmy Lai, is in prison serving sentences for peaceful protests and also faces charges under a national security law that China imposed on the city last year, and which effectively criminalized dissent with penalties of up to life in prison.
In an interview this month with Voice of America, Chan, speaking in his capacity as chair of the journalists’ association, said 2021 had been the “saddest year” for the press in Hong Kong, with “many red lines” now confronting journalists. Authorities have tightened the screws on public broadcaster Radio Television Hong Kong, eroding its editorial independence and forcing it to play a role as a state mouthpiece rather than an independent voice.
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The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Hong Kong, in a survey of almost 100 journalists working in the city published November, found that 84 percent of respondents said the environment for the press had changed for the worse. About half said they had avoided topics or self-censored to some degree since the national security law took effect.
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Wednesday’s arrests come amid a flurry of repressive actions in Hong Kong, which held a legislative vote this month that only “patriots” — those loyal to the Communist Party — could contest. Days later, with the pro-Beijing camp occupying the entire legislature and the pro-democracy opposition in jail, authorities removed statues on university campuses commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, erasing one of the last symbols of how life in Hong Kong was different from life on the mainland.
Stand News was founded in December 2014 after the Umbrella Movement protests, an unsuccessful campaign by Hong Kongers demanding the right to elect their leaders. The outlet often elevates voices of pro-democracy activists in the city, and was known for its live broadcasts of anti-government protests in 2019.
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Since the action against Apple Daily, reporters and editors at Stand News had been bracing for arrests or other moves by the authorities to target the company, given its status as the most prominent surviving pro-democracy publication. The organization took its editorials and other non-news items offline as a precautionary measure and several of its board members resigned, including Ho and Ng.
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Stand News staff, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of safety concerns, described an atmosphere of nervousness in recent months. Colleagues would notify each other in secure chat groups if they saw people who resembled plainclothes officers loitering outside their offices. Reporters would wake before dawn to check for news of raids or arrests, such as the one on Wednesday.
But there was also an increased sense of responsibility, given the demise of other pro-democracy voices.
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“We felt it’s only us left, after Apple Daily,” said one reporter. “Everyone who stays wants to stay till the end. We still want to do a bit more,” he added, before his voice trailed off and he began to cry.
Theodora Yu contributed to this report.
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