Veteran journalist Allan Au arrested for alleged sedition: source

National security police have on Monday arrested veteran journalist Allan Au Ka-lun for allegedly conspiring to publish seditious materials, according to sources.

He was brought to a police station in Kwai Chung for further investigation.

Au, 54, previously worked as a senior producer at TVB News and a radio host on RTHK. He was also a columnist for outlets including Ming Pao and the now-shuttered Stand News.

Au was fired from the public broadcaster in June last year amid a government-directed editorial overhaul, after running a current affairs show for over a decade.

It was understood that the arrest of Au, a teaching consultant at the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s School of Journalism and Communication, came after he shared his political views in columns for various publications and on social media, possibly linked to the Stand News case.

Stand News, an independent pro-democracy media outlet, shuttered in December last year after 200 police officers raided its newsroom, froze its assets, and arrested seven people linked to the outlet on suspicion of conspiring to publish seditious material.

Soon after Stand News’ closure, Au began to write "good morning" each day on his Facebook to confirm his safety. Au also commented on the city’s sedition offences under the Crimes Ordinance not long ago.

Writing on his own blog on March 30, he noted that the words written by people - despite not being read by many - could easily be deemed seditious.

He also claimed that the offense of sedition depends on how the government views its relationship with citizens

“Criticizing a society’s ruler would definitely be wrong if the ruler has been considered supreme, or being viewed as people’s guiding light…However, it would not be seditious to make such comments when the ruler was considered a public servant empowered by the people, who only answered to the general public.

“Criticism from the public only aims to correct its servant’s mistakes,” Au wrote.

Two former senior editors of the outlet - Chung Pui-kuen and Patrick Lam Shiu-tung - remain in jail custody after their bail application was rejected at the end of December last year.