Hong Kong sees first ‘seditious publication’ jailing's since handover

By AFP

Published January 31, 2022

There has been a widespread crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong - 

Copyright AFP Peter PARKS

Hong Kong’s courts jailed two people for publishing seditious content on Monday, the first time the colonial-era law has been used to secure a conviction for printed content since the city’s 1997 handover to China.

Sedition is a throwback to Hong Kong’s British colonial past but has been dusted off as authorities carry out a widespread crackdown on dissent in the wake of 2019’s democracy protests.

Multiple people — including journalists, union members and a prominent radio DJ — have been detained under the law and are facing upcoming trials.

A woman last year was jailed for “conspiracy to commit a seditious act” over a pro-democracy chat group she ran which revealed personal details about police officers.

But Monday’s verdicts were the first seditious publication convictions since the return to Chinese rule.

Kim Chiang Chung-sang, 41, a former property manager, was given eight months in jail for putting up posters outside a kindergarten and the city’s High Court.

The posters criticised the judiciary for convicting a man last year at the first trial under a national security law that Beijing imposed on Hong Kong to neuter dissent.

Acting Chief Magistrate Peter Law said Chiang was “challenging the rule of law” and trying to “poison children quietly”.

In a separate case that also concluded on Monday, the District Court jailed former clerk Chloe Tso Suet-sum, 45, for over a year for asking a 17-year-old to design and print protests leaflets.

Prosecutors said the leaflets contained slogans urging Hong Kong people to build their own army and nation, and also carried black bauhinia flowers, a symbol of the city’s now crushed democracy movement.

The 17-year-old, who AFP has chosen not to name, was sent to a youth rehabilitation centre, a step short of a custodial sentence where juveniles usually stay for two to five months.

The defendants in both cases pleaded guilty, which normally results in a sentence reduction.

Sedition carries up to two years in jail for a first offence.

During colonial rule it was deployed against pro-Beijing media and leftist government critics who slammed it as a tool to suppress free speech.

Now Chinese state media and Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing press have embraced its use against the current government’s critics.

Police and prosecutors now regularly use sedition alongside the national security law to clamp down on political speech and views.

It is treated like a national security crime which means those arrested are usually denied bail.

In recent months sedition charges have been brought against pro-democracy unionists who produced euphemistic children’s books about a sheep village defending itself from invading wolves, as well as journalists from now shuttered pro-democracy news outlets Apple Daily and StandNews.

Ming Pao, a Chinese mainstream newspaper in Hong Kong, recently adding a disclaimer to its columns saying it had no intention of committing sedition when criticising government policy.

Press freedom rapidly deteriorating in China — report

Foreign journalists working in China are facing "unprecedented hurdles" ahead of the Winter Olympics, according to a new survey. Reporters in the Xinjiang region also say they are being increasingly harassed.

    

The Chinese government frequently censors critical media coverage

Foreign journalists in China are facing "unprecedented hurdles," according to a press freedom report by the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China (FCCC) released on Monday.

"The FCCC is troubled by the breakneck speed by which media freedom is declining in China," the report said.

What did the report say?

Of the over 100 foreign journalists that took part in the FCCC's survey, 99% said that they felt working conditions did not meet international standards.

Almost half of respondents said that their offices were understaffed as they were unable to bring journalists into the country as authorities have delayed visa approvals.

88% of respondents who traveled to China's northwestern Xinjiang region in 2021 said they were visibly followed, and 34% said that they were asked to delete data. Xinjiang has been the site of a crackdown on China's Uyghur ethnic minority, which has drawn international condemnation.

The FCCC noted that state-backed campaigns of online harassment have been used to make the job of reporting more difficult.

60% of respondents criticized the insufficient information provided about the Olympics

China tightly controlling Olympics coverage

In the run-up to the Beijing Winter Olympics, 60% of the 127 respondents criticized the insufficient information provided by the organizers about events.

23% said that they were not able to get in touch with appropriate Olympics committee personnel, while 32% said they were excluded from events open to other media.

Only 10% of respondents said that they were able to reliably attend pre-Olympics events. Correspondents often only learn of press events after they occur, according to the FCCC report.

The FCCC said in its report that "media freedom deteriorates in the periods around China's major events — a time when the authorities want to ensure political stability."

According to the FCCC, most news organizations are planning to send foreign journalists from outside China to cover the Olympics, which will require entering a quarantine bubble. 90% of respondents to the survey said they were not planning to go into the Olympics bubble.

Hong Kong's pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily closed after its offices were raided

 and founder Jimmy Lai was arrested

Hong Kong no longer an appealing option for correspondents

The FCCC report said that foreign correspondents that haven't been able to remain in China have relocated to cities such as Taipei, Singapore, Sydney and London.

The FCCC said that Hong Kong is no longer an appealing option for foreign correspondents, as China has begun expelling foreign journalists as well as arresting and jailing local journalists.

In December of 2021, pro-democracy news outlet Stand News was forced to shut down after its offices were raided by police and current and former staff were arrested.

In June last year, police raided the premises of the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily and the paper's executives were arrested for "collusion with a foreign country."

sdi/wd (AFP, dpa)

Teaching journalism now a risky affair

 in Hong Kong

Journalism teachers in Hong Kong can no longer teach freely amid an ongoing crackdown on free press by the government. Some are adapting to the new situation and changing their strategy.


Hong Kong authorities have intensified a crackdown on free media

Journalists in Hong Kong are facing a massive government crackdown, which has forced many news organizations to shut down their operations. It has also resulted in many journalists losing their jobs.

The crisis is not limited to media organizations and journalists; journalism teachers and trainers are also facing the brunt of the clampdown.

Under pressure from authorities, media studies teachers are unsure what to teach in the classrooms.

Zhao (name changed due to security concerns) is a part-time journalism lecturer at a university in Hong Kong. He told DW that while the university management didn't tell teachers to not teach certain topics, teachers are aware of what can't be said and what needs to be expressed in a veiled manner.

Zhao says he tells his students to be careful when covering "sensitive topics" for class assignments.

"During the Hong Kong media heyday in the 1990s, journalists could ask any question directly while reporting a topic," he said, adding that they didn't have to worry about violating media laws.

Yuen Chan, a journalism lecturer at City, University of London, fears that journalism education in Hong Kong is likely to come under more pressure in coming years.

"I think the challenge is going to be how to uphold the principles of journalism without falling foul of the law and worrying about the red lines," she told DW.

Red lines

Journalism teachers say it is becoming increasingly difficult to define the red lines regarding freedom of expression.

Tai (name changed), who teaches news editing and management at a university in Hong Kong, told DW that some teachers may choose to make significant adjustments to their teaching materials out of security concerns.

"For instance, some examples that the teachers previously used in the class may now violate the National Security Law (NSL), so they use other examples to teach certain skills in the classroom," he said.

One such example, he said, is how to describe Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen to students. In the past, some media outlets in Hong Kong introduced her as "Taiwanese President," but now it could be viewed as illegal under the NSL. The teachers now describe her as "Taiwan leader."

Tai admits that in the past two years, he, too, adjusted some parts of his teaching materials. "For example, Hong Kong's local media used to offer a wide range of perspectives that I could use in the classroom to explain journalism theories, but since the city now lacks perspectives in certain areas, I can only use materials offered by the international media," he said.
An unsafe profession

Chiaoning Su, a journalism professor at Oakland University in the United States, says many of her former colleagues have left Hong Kong.

"Those who are still there face an impossible task: teaching the core values of democratic journalism," she told DW.

Lokman Tsui, a former assistant professor of journalism at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), agrees with Chiaoning. "Journalistic values are very important. It is getting more difficult to teach them because of the direction that the government has taken," he said.

Tsui says it is now a challenge for media educators to encourage their students to become journalists. "As a teacher, you want to encourage your students to contribute something to society. But how do you do that when journalism has become unsafe?"
A difficult future

Two years ago, journalism was a popular subject at Hong Kong universities, and the number of applicants for journalism departments had grown substantially. The situation is rapidly changing now.

Journalism lecturers and communication departments at public universities are now pondering how to adapt to the changing political landscape in the city.

"University operations are supported by the government, so if they don't comply with the rules, they don't have any future in Hong Kong," said Zhao.

Yuen Chan says that some journalism schools are shifting their focus to advertising and media marketing. "Many journalism departments are offering courses in public relations, marketing, and creative industries. We may see more of these things in the future."

Despite these challenges, Zhao says he is not ready to give up on his ideals. "The media's role in monitoring the government will not change because of the crackdown," he said.

Tsung-Hsien Lee contributed to the report.

Edited by: Shamil Shams