Stand News editor gets 21 months but peer set free

Eunice Lam and Marcus Lum

The chief editor of the now-defunct Stand News, Chung Pui-kuen, has been jailed for 21 months as national security judge Kwok Wai-kin handed down sentences for the city's first sedition case involving journalists since the handover.

The other defendant, ex-acting chief editor Patrick Lam Shiu-tung, 36, was immediately released as he suffered from a rare immune disease and had been remanded for a long time.

Yesterday's hearing at District Court did not start until 4.40pm, more than two hours behind schedule.

As he had been detained already for 349 days, Chung, 55, will now have to serve the remaining nine months of his 21-month prison sentence.

As for Lam, Kwok considered 14 months as the starting sentence, but reduced it by three months after considering the defendant's medical condition.

The holding company of Stand News, Best Pencil (HK) Ltd, was fined HK$5,000.

Kwok cited Chung's earlier evidence that Stand News had no political stance, which he said was a lie, and the court had already ruled that the media outlet aimed to promote nativism.

Kwok also dismissed defense lawyer Audrey Eu Yuet-mee's claim that both defendants violated the law unwittingly.

He said Chung and Lam were not only performing the duties of a media worker but indeed confronting the government, while Stand News had some 1.6 million followers on social media back then.

The 11 seditious articles in the case had brought huge harm to citizens and could not be quantified, Kwok added.

Chung smiled at the dock after listening to Lam's sentence, while Lam's wife could not hold back her tears.

Lam left the court at around 7.30pm, without answering reporters' questions.

During mitigation, Eu submitted three supplementary medical reports of Lam, including one written by the Queen Mary Hospital's head of medicine.

But Kwok said he did not understand the reports, to which Eu noted the defense had consulted a private doctor, citing Lam suffered from a rare disease that saw his kidney function reduced to below 30 percent.

"If Lam had to return behind bars ... treatment may be delayed and it may threaten his life," Eu said.

She called for a lenient sentence.

In his judgment handed in August, Kwok ruled that 11 out of 17 articles in the case had seditious intentions, including an interview with activist Gwyneth Ho Kwai-lam and blogs written by national security fugitive Nathan Law Kwun-chung and Chan Pui-man, former associate publisher of the defunct Apple Daily.

Eu suggested that none of the 11 articles deemed to have seditious intention by the judge "were promoting any political viewpoints," but only presenting the views of interviewees and bloggers.

Kwok responded by saying smearing and slandering without objectivity were "unacceptable."

Eu argued that other newspapers like Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po also criticized the judiciary and other political figures.

She said no one had complained that Stand News had specifically reported seditious articles.

eunice.lam@singtaonewscorp.com

marcus.lum@singtaonewscorp.com