Hong Kong court to hear former Stand News editor's appeal application against sedition conviction in Sept 2026
Hong Kong's Court of Appeal will hear the appeal application of a former senior editor at defunct media outlet Stand News against his sedition conviction in September next year.
The three-day hearing will begin on September 22, 2026, according to the Judiciary's court diary.
Patrick Lam, the former acting chief editor at Stand News, lodged the appeal to overturn his conviction in October last year, one month after he was sentenced alongside former chief editor Chung Pui-kuen at the District Court.
The pair were found guilty of 'conspiracy to publish and reproduce seditious publications' in August. The parent company of Stand News was also found guilty of the colonial-era sedition charge.
Chung was sentenced to 21 months in jail, while Lam was handed a 14-month jail term. But Lam was released immediately after District Court Judge Kwok Wai-kin determined that Lam would not have to serve extra time in jail after taking into account the 10 months Lam spent in pre-trial detention and his poor health.
The judgment marked the first sedition conviction of journalists in Hong Kong since the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
'Tool to smear and vilify'
Stand News was forced to shutter in December 2021 after national security police raided its newsroom and froze its assets. The two editors and the outlet's parent company were later charged under the colonial-era sedition offence, punishable by up to two years in jail.
Judge Kwok ruled that the two editors were not conducting genuine journalism during the period of the offence, but instead 'participating in the so-called resistance.'
Kwok found that the news outlet had published 11 articles ruled to be seditious, 'at a time when over half of the Hong Kong society distrusted [Beijing] and [the local] government, the police, and the judiciary.'
The 11 articles, mostly opinion pieces critical of the authorities, caused 'potential detrimental consequences to national security,' the judge said.
Stand News 'became a tool to smear and vilify the [Beijing] Authorities and the [Hong Kong] Government' during the 2019 protests and unrest, Kwok wrote.
The homegrown national security law, known locally as Article 23, which came into effect in March 2024, raised the penalty for sedition to seven years in prison and 10 years if the offender is found to have colluded with a foreign element.
Separate from the 2020 Beijing-enacted security law, the homegrown Safeguarding National Security Ordinance targets treason, insurrection, sabotage, external interference, sedition, theft of state secrets and espionage. It allows for pre-charge detention of up to 16 days, and suspects' access to lawyers may be restricted, with penalties involving up to life in prison. Article 23 was shelved in 2003 amid mass protests, remaining taboo for years. But, on March 23, 2024, it was enacted having been fast-tracked and unanimously approved at the city's opposition-free legislature.
The law has been criticised by rights NGOs, Western states and the UN as vague, broad and 'regressive.' Authorities, however, cited perceived foreign interference and a constitutional duty to 'close loopholes' after the 2019 protests and unrest.
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