By South China Morning Post | Created at 2024-09-26 11:28:37 | Updated at 2024-09-30 15:30:12
4 days ago
Two former editors of the now-defunct Stand News in Hong Kong have been sentenced to up to 21 months in prison for conspiring to publish seditious articles, with one being given immediate release as he suffered a rare disease.
The District Court handed down its sentence on Thursday, almost a month after the journalists were found guilty in the landmark case – the first involving media professionals being charged under a colonial-era sedition law since Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule in 1997.
Former editor-in-chief Chung Pui-kuen, 55, and ex-acting editor-in-chief Patrick Lam Shiu-tung, 36, remained calm as they heard their prison terms for a conspiracy charge of publishing and reproducing seditious material pronounced to a packed court.
The judge sentenced Chung to a jail term of 21 months and considered 14 months as the starting sentence for Lam.
The pair had been incarcerated before securing bail in the middle of the trial. Having already spent up to a year behind bars, Chung had to serve a remaining nine months, while Lam could avoid his remaining term of 21 days, as the judge considered his need to treat his rare disease.
