Last standing pro-democratic organisation closes in Hong Kong
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Roshan Amiri
- . December 29, 2021
- . Update: December 30, 2021 1:20 pm
Hong Kong-–In line with all the other organizations which have been closed down in Hong Kong for supporting democracy in the region, Stand News has also been shut down. Stand News was already the last pro-democracy media organization in Hong Kong.
But the organization has been raided by the police and senior staff officials after which it was forced to shut down. The organization confirmed the announcement in a post on social media platform Facebook, “Because of the situation, Stand News is ceasing operations immediately.”
As per a report, more than 200 police officers raided the publication’s office. The Hong Kong police released a statement saying that they were completely authorized to search and seize relevant journalistic materials inside the organization. The post on social media stressed that it would be removing all the content on Facebook within a day.
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This morning, the police arrested a number of senior and former senior staff of the company, [and] took many people away to assist in the investigation,” the statement confirmed. The statement also said some of the relevant material, the officials also seized computers and documents from its office.
Along with this, three men and four women were arrested. This is between the age group 34 and 73 years. The arrests were majorly of the top officials of the company including the former and acting chief editors of Stand News, Chung Pui-kuen and Patrick Lam. Pop star turned democracy icon Denise Ho was also arrested in the raid.
Apart from these, three other board members were arrested. Margaret Ng, Christine Fang and Chow Tat-chi are the ones added in the loss, however, the identity of the seventh person who has been arrested has not been revealed. Talking about the raid, Chief Secretary of police John Lee stated that they were operating with norms completely against the nation and “zero tolerance of behaviour that threatens national security”.
