Hong Kong Police Raid Stand News Media Office Who Is Pro-democracy, Six People Detained

Hong Kong police illustration. (Wikimedia Commons/Studio Incendo)

JAKARTA - Hundreds of Hong Kong national security police raided the offices of online pro-democracy media outlet Stand News on Wednesday, arresting six people, including senior staff, on suspicion of 'publicity sedition' offenses.

The attacks have further raised concerns about media freedom in the former British colony, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997 on promises to protect individual rights.

Police said in a statement it had a warrant permitting him "to search for and confiscate relevant journalistic material".

"More than 200 uniformed and plainclothes police officers have been deployed," the statement said, citing Reuters on December 29.

Separately, police said they had arrested three men and three women, aged 34 to 73, without naming them, for "conspiring to publish a seditious publication".

Ronson Chan, deputy editor-in-chief of Stand News and head of the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA), not among those arrested said police confiscated his computer, iPhone, iPad, press card, and banking records during the morning raid.

"Stand News always reports news professionally," he explained. Other senior staff could not be reached for comment.

The Stand News office in an industrial building in the working-class district of Kwun Tong was partially closed, with police roaming the lobby and four vans parked downstairs.

Officers were seen loading about three dozen boxes of documents and other materials seized as evidence onto a truck.

Hong Kong police illustration. (Wikimedia Commons/Stewart~惡龍)

Stand News, founded in 2014 as a non-profit, is Hong Kong's most prominent pro-democracy publication, after a national security investigation earlier this year led to the closure of jailed tycoon Jimmy Lai's Apple Daily tabloid.

Separately, Steven Butler, Asia program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, said the police action was an "open attack on Hong Kong's tattered press freedom".

The government's Security Bureau did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Authorities have repeatedly said all prosecutions are based on evidence and have nothing to do with the professions of the people arrested.

To note, sedition does not fall under the offenses listed under a national security law imposed by Beijing in the city in June 2020 that punishes terrorism, collusion with foreign troops, subversion, and secession with possible life imprisonment.

However, a recent court ruling has freed authorities to use the powers granted by the new law to implement previously rarely used colonial-era laws, including the Crimes Act that covers sedition.

Authorities say the security law has restored order after the often violent pro-democracy riots in 2019. Meanwhile, critics say the law is a tool to quell dissent and has put the global financial hub on an authoritarian path.

In June, hundreds of police raided the premises of Apple Daily, arresting executives on charges of "collusion with a foreign country". The newspaper was later shut down after police froze its assets.

On Tuesday, prosecutors filed additional "publicity sedition" charges against Lai and six other former Apple Daily staffers.

However, police have yet to reveal which Apple Daily or Stand News articles they deem seditious.