Hong Kong police raided pro-democracy media after six people were arrested by Reuters

By James Pomfret and Joyce Zhou

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Hundreds of Hong Kong national security police raided the Democracy’s Stand News Network media office on Wednesday and arrested six people, including senior staff, for “conspiring to publish seditious publications.”

This search raises concerns about freedom of expression and the media in the former British colony, which returned to power in China in 1997, promising to protect many individual rights.

Police said in a statement that they were conducting a search, “authorizing the search and seizure of relevant journalistic material.”

“More than 200 uniformed and plainclothes police officers have been deployed during the operation. The search operation is underway,” the statement said.

Sedition is not a crime under the broad national security law that Beijing imposed on the city in June 2020.

But recent court rulings have freed authorities from exercising their powers under new legislation to extend the laws of the previously little-used colonial era, including the Crime Ordinance that covers sedition.

Authorities say the national security law has restored order in 2019 after many violent violent unrest and does not restrict rights and freedoms. Critics say the legislation is a tool to suppress dissent.

In June, hundreds of police raided the premises of the pro-democracy Apple (NASDAQ 🙂 Daily newspaper and arrested executives on charges of “solidarity with a foreign country.” The newspaper was then shut down.

Hong Kong TVB presenter said Margaret Ng, a former Democratic lawmaker, and Denise Ho, a pop singer, and Patrick Lam, the acting editor-in-chief, were among the six people arrested on Wednesday.

Stand News has released a video of a police officer arriving at Ronson Chan’s headquarters, his deputy editor-in-chief, also head of the Hong Kong Journalists’ Association.

“The accusation was a conspiracy to publish seditious publications. This is a court order and this is my order card. Your phone is interfering with our work,” an official said.

Police said in a statement that three men and three women between the ages of 34 and 73 had been arrested and that their homes were being searched. He has not named the detainees, as is customary.

Dozens of police have partially shut down the Stand News office in an industrial building in the Kwun Tong workers’ district, according to a Reuters reporter.

A media liaison officer on the 14th floor said access to the office would not be allowed as it was an “ongoing operation”. He declined to give further details.

Dozens of police vans were parked below around dozens of police lobbies.