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Journalists complain of being stalked while reporting on court cases
Several journalists reported that they were harassed by surveillance from unidentified persons. Some of them were court reporters who covered the Stand News trial. (The non-profit Stand News was raided by police and ultimately forced to shut down its former chief editor is facing prosecution for the publication of 17 allegedly seditious articles.) According to the Hong Kong Journalists Association…
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Apple Daily executives plead guilty to “collusion with foreign forces” under the NSL
On 22 November 2022, six former staff members of Apple Daily and its parent company Next Digital pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to commit “collusion with foreign forces” in violation of the NSL. The staff members were accused of conspiring with Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai, and three companies linked with Apple Daily, to publish…
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Police watchdog dismisses complaint by reporter hit by police projectile during protests
In January 2023, the Independent Police Complaints Council (“IPCC”) dismissed a journalist’s complaint against the police. The journalist formerly worked for Commercial Radio, and had been shot by the police with a sponge grenade during the 2019 protests. The reporter first made his complaint to the Complaints Against Police Office (“CAPO”), a division within the…
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Stand News “sedition” trial continues, with lack of due process
Patrick Lam and Chung Pui-Kuen, editors of the independent news outlet Stand News, were arrested in December 2021. Their trial for conspiracy to publish “seditious materials” had already taken 36 days by February 2023, exceeding the planned duration of 20 days, and will tentatively take until the end of March. Lack of due process was…
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Signing away the freedom of the press
This judgment yet again affirms that with the national security law, all common law or statutory protections of rights and freedoms that we have always known go out the window.