'Colonial wine from new, authoritarian bottles': Hong Kong re-tools sedition law - Yahoo News
By Greg Torode and James Pomfret
HONG KONG (Reuters) - The Hong Kong government is expanding its use of a long-dormant sedition law in what some lawyers and democracy advocates say is intensifying a squeeze on press freedom.
Evidence of the renewed reliance on the sedition legislation came in late December when China-ruled Hong Kong targeted two media outlets. On Dec 29, about 200 police raided the office of online outlet Stand News and arrested seven people, charging two editors with conspiracy to publish "seditious publications".
Authorities have not fully detailed what led to the charges. But pro-Beijing media outlets Ta Kung Pao and DotDotNews listed specific Stand News articles that they deemed seditious, including interviews with local democracy activists and opposition figures - topics that until recently were not out of the ordinary in Hong Kong.
A day earlier, prosecutors levelled a new charge of sedition against Jimmy Lai, 74, founder of the now shuttered Apple Daily newspaper and some of his top executives.
The charge of sedition, inciting resistance or insurrection against central authorities, stems from colonial-era laws designed to thwart dissent against the British crown, and had not been used in Hong Kong since the mid-1960s until recently, three legal scholars interviewed by Reuters say. Last month's sedition charges were the first to be brought against the media since 1967, according to those scholars.
Some legal scholars say recent court judgements have empowered authorities to use the controversial national security law (NSL) imposed on the city by Beijing in 2020, to bolster colonial-era laws, including sedition.
The security law, enacted after sometimes-violent, pro-democracy protests rocked the city in 2019, gives police extra powers of search, seizure and surveillance and makes it tougher for those arrested to get bail. Only judges selected for national security duties will handle cases under the law.
source: https://news.yahoo.com/colonial-wine-authoritarian-bottles-hong-085026567.html
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