A Hong Kong court found two former editors guilty for publishing allegedly seditious articles, convicting journalists of sedition charges for the first time in decades in a move likely to deepen press freedom concerns.

The city’s District Court on Thursday announced the verdict on Chung Pui-kuen and Patrick Lam, top editors at the shuttered pro-democracy publisher Stand News, and its parent company. The sedition case is the first involving a media outlet since the former British colony returned to Chinese rule.

The trial was seen as a barometer for press freedom in the once-freewheeling finance hub after Chinese authorities crushed dissent with a national security law in response to massive protests in 2019 advocating for greater democracy.

Chung and Lam were charged with taking part in a “conspiracy to publish and reproduce seditious publications,” an offense punishable by up to two years in jail. They pleaded not guilty when the trial began in 2022.

Prosecutors cited 17 articles published by Stand News in 2020 and 2021 as evidence, such as interviews with pro-democracy activists, including those who were found guilty in a separate case under the Beijing-imposed national security law.

Stand News, which extensively covered the 2019 protests, folded at the end of 2021 after authorities raided its office and froze its assets. That followed similar raids of the office of Apple Daily and its parent company Next Digital, whose former editors and founder Jimmy Lai have also been accused of publishing seditious materials.

Lai will take the stand to defend himself in a major national security case later this year after a court dismissed his bid to quash charges that could see the 76-year-old locked up for life. Lai’s lawyers will defend the pro-democracy tycoon when the hearing resumes on November 20.

Two dozen governments have criticized Hong Kong and Chinese authorities for attacks on press freedom and the suppression of independent local media in the city, citing the cases of Stand News and Apple Daily. Diplomats from the US, the UK and European Union were among Western representatives attending the verdict, which a judge announced to a courtroom and an overflow room packed with members of the public and the press.

Chung and Lam were charged under a colonial-era sedition law revived in recent years to target critics, including a radio host who was found guilty of uttering seditious phrases. The city passed its own national security legislation in March that raised the maximum penalty for sedition to as many as 10 years in prison.

Hong Kong ranks 135 out of 180 places in the World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders, declining from 18th place in the span of two decades.

  - Bloomberg