Hong Kong Police Raid Stand Information and Arrest Workers

HONG KONG — Hundreds of Hong Kong police officers arrested 7 folks connected to an outspoken pro-democracy information web site and raided the site’s headquarters on Wednesday, in however a further federal government crackdown on the city’s the moment-lively unbiased press.

Inside of several hours, the web page, Stand Information, introduced that it would shut down straight away, and its web site and social media internet pages would be deleted in a working day. All employees ended up dismissed.

“Stand News’s editorial plan was to be unbiased and fully commited to safeguarding Hong Kong’s core values of democracy, human legal rights, independence, the rule of regulation and justice,” the announcement reported. “Thank you, audience, for your continued assist.”

The seven have been arrested on suspicion of conspiring to publish seditious content, according to the police. A senior formal, Steve Li, accused the publication at a information meeting of publishing “inflammatory” content material intended to incite hatred towards the governing administration and the judiciary, in particular by way of its protection of the city’s intense pro-democracy protests in 2019.

John Lee, Hong Kong’s No. 2 official, explained to reporters at a independent information conference that journalism could not be employed as a display screen for endangering nationwide stability.

“These are the bad apples who are abusing their place simply by carrying a fake coat of media employee,” he explained when asked about Stand Information. “They are the folks who harm press freedom. Skilled media staff ought to realize this, say no to these individuals and stand considerably from them.”

Hong Kong officers have focused critics across civil culture, which includes in the news media, considering that the Chinese Communist Party imposed a national stability legislation on the town in June 2020 to quell the fierce, at-moments violent protests in 2019.

Before this yr, Apple Everyday, most likely the city’s greatest-recognised pro-democracy newspaper, was compelled to shut soon after several law enforcement raids of its newsroom and the arrests of a number of leading editors and its founder, Jimmy Lai.

On Tuesday, Mr. Lai was billed with a new accusation of sedition related to the newspaper, as ended up six other former senior staff members. Mr. Lai, a person of Hong Kong’s most notable opposition voices, had currently been sentenced to 20 months in prison in relation to his guidance of the pro-democracy motion, and he faces up to lifetime in prison on other prices.

Officials have sent warning letters to information retailers about coverage they dislike, and various overseas journalists have been denied visas to operate in the previous British colony. The govt has also announced strategies to enact a law towards so-termed fake information.

Right after Apple Each day folded, Stand Information — which was launched as a nonprofit in 2014 following an earlier spherical of mass professional-democracy protests that yr — grew to become one particular of the city’s last overtly professional-democracy shops. Officials produced distinct that it could be targeted up coming.

Hong Kong’s stability secretary, Chris Tang, this thirty day period accused the information internet site of “biased, smearing and demonizing” stories about situations at a prison. Lau Siu-Kai, an adviser to Beijing, was even extra blunt, telling Chinese state media that “the survival room” for opposition news shops was shrinking.

“Stand Information will come into an conclusion,” Mr. Lau reported.

The arrests on Wednesday began all around 6 a.m., according to videos and posts shared on Fb, when officers arrived at the properties of current and previous Stand Information team associates, together with Ronson Chan, a deputy editor, and Denise Ho, a popular regional singer who experienced served on the organization’s board.

All-around the very same time, more than 200 officers entered the publication’s headquarters in Hong Kong and done a research, the law enforcement said. Footage and photos reviewed by The New York Occasions showed officers stringing orange tape throughout a hallway inside of the business office setting up, and wheeling suitcases and containers containing pcs and other elements out of the newsroom. A picture confirmed at minimum two dozen big blue plastic packing containers stacked in the building’s foyer.

Mr. Li, the law enforcement formal, said the authorities froze almost $8 million in assets.

6 of people arrested had been former or present-day senior staff members users of Stand Information, the police stated, nevertheless they did not release names. The footage reviewed by The Times showed Patrick Lam, the acting editor in main, getting escorted from his home in handcuffs. One more arrested was Chung Pui-kuen, a former editor-in-chief, according to Mr. Chan, the deputy editor, who spoke to reporters immediately after getting questioned by police and then unveiled.

The authorities did not specify the identification of the seventh particular person, but area media claimed that she was a previous Apple Every day govt who had also prepared for Stand Information.

In addition to these arrests, the police raided the residences of 4 other workers, the police reported.

Stand News had cast a name as a plucky operation that combined diligent protection of protests, trials and other political troubles with way of living pieces and hyperlocal capabilities.

For the duration of the 2019 protests, Stand News reporters documented episodes which includes a mob assault on pro-democracy protesters in a subway station a single reporter, Gwyneth Ho, was herself attacked. (Ms. Ho, who later resigned to enter politics, is now in jail.)

Just after the protection regulation, the authorities’ stress rapidly mounted. In June, Stand Information eliminated on the web commentaries released in May perhaps or earlier, noting that Hong Kong was starting to concentrate on “speech crimes.”

It was not promptly crystal clear whether the outlet would experience rates under the nationwide security legislation, which can have intense sentences up to everyday living imprisonment. The sedition charge does not tumble underneath the protection legislation, as an alternative stemming from a colonial-period ordinance.

But the arrests were carried out by the countrywide security police, and the warrant for the newsroom raid was issued beneath the protection law, the law enforcement said. And Mr. Li, the police official, reported that Stand News’s article content had aimed to incite secession, subvert state electricity or get in touch with on international governments to impose sanctions on Hong Kong — all offenses underneath the security law.

Authorized professionals stated the authorities had been blurring the lines involving the stability legislation and other legal legislation in Hong Kong, primarily allowing for the stability law’s much more sweeping provisions, these kinds of as stricter bail circumstances, to be employed in much more circumstances.

“The level of human rights protections, together with the proper to truthful trial, under the N.S.L. is substantially decreased,” mentioned Senia Ng, a Hong Kong attorney and member of the opposition Democratic Occasion, making use of an acronym for the national security law.

For several Stand Information staff and in Hong Kong’s media sphere far more broadly, Wednesday’s crackdown, even though predicted, was nevertheless chilling.

The Hong Kong Journalists Affiliation, a trade corporation of about 500 community journalists, stated in a assertion that it was “deeply worried that the law enforcement have continuously arrested senior members of the media and searched the workplaces of news companies that contains big quantities of journalistic materials inside of a yr.”

The affiliation has by itself come under extreme strain from the authorities. Mr. Tang, the stability secretary, accused it in September of “infiltrating” campuses and leading university student journalists astray.

The association’s chairman is Mr. Chan, the Stand Information editor whose house was searched on Wednesday. He was released all over noon immediately after becoming questioned, and he explained to reporters that the law enforcement had seized his notebook, telephone and iPad, as effectively as financial institution files and his press accreditation.

“Stand Information has generally documented professionally,” Mr. Chan reported. “This is clear for the entire world to see.”

Hong Kong officers have denied any crackdown on push flexibility. In an look at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Hong Kong in September, Regina Ip, a professional-Beijing lawmaker, pointed to Stand News as evidence that flexibility of speech was intact.

“The liberty of expression is even now alive and effectively,” she mentioned. “Hong Kong Stand Information, all these sites are nonetheless carrying on as standard.”

Joy Dong contributed investigation.