Hong Kong police raid pro-democracy outlet
HONG KONG — Hundreds of Hong Kong police officers arrested seven people connected to an outspoken pro-democracy news website and raided the site’s headquarters Wednesday in yet another government crackdown on the city’s once-vibrant independent press.
Within hours, Stand News announced that it would shut down immediately, and its website and social media pages would be deleted within a day. All employees were dismissed.
“Stand News’ editorial policy was to be independent and committed to safeguarding Hong Kong’s core values of democracy, human rights, freedom, the rule of law and justice,” the announcement said.
The seven were arrested on suspicion of conspiring to publish seditious material, police said. A senior official, Steve Li, accused the publication at a news conference of publishing “inflammatory” content intended to incite hatred toward the government and the judiciary, especially through its coverage of the city’s fierce pro-democracy protests in 2019.
Hong Kong officials have targeted critics across civil society, including in the media, since the Chinese Communist Party imposed a national security law on the city in June 2020 to quell the fierce, at-times violent protests in 2019.
Earlier this year, Apple Daily, perhaps the city’s best-known prodemocracy newspaper, was forced to close after multiple police raids of its newsroom and the arrests of several top editors and its founder, Jimmy Lai.
On Tuesday, Lai was charged with a new accusation of sedition related to the newspaper, as were six other former senior employees.
The arrests Wednesday began around 6 a.m., according to videos and posts shared on Facebook, when officers arrived at the homes of current and former Stand News staff members, including Ronson Chan, a deputy editor, and Denise Ho, a popular local singer who had served on the organization’s board.
Around the same time, more than 200 officers entered the publication’s headquarters in Hong Kong and conducted a search, police said.
Li said authorities froze nearly $8 million in assets.
Six of those arrested were former or current senior staff members of Stand News, police said, though they didn’t release names.
Local media reported that the seventh person arrested was a former Apple Daily executive who also had written for Stand News.