Writing to the Hong Kong court that convicted him of sedition, former Stand News editor Patrick Lam said he regretted missing a chance to tell a police officer about independent journalism.
Lam and his ex-colleague Chung Pui-kuen, both former top editors of the now-shuttered Stand News, will learn their sentences today after being found guilty last month.
They were the first journalists to be convicted of sedition since the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997. They face up to two years in prison and a fine of 5,000 Hong Kong dollars under a then British-ruled city’s sedition law.
Stand News, founded in 2014, emerged at a time when the city’s news industry was already facing increased censorship and interference, according to Lam’s mitigation letter, read out in court by his lawyer Audrey Eu in August.
Lam wrote that during his detention, a police officer described their positions, telling him that “we’re each serving our own master.”
Whatever the sentence, the case has already changed Lam and Chung’s lives. They spent almost a year in custody following their arrests.
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