Thread by @XinqiSu

#CONTINUE #StandNews founding chief editor Chung Pui-kuen began this morning his second day on witness stand. The first QA session with his defense counsel lasted 1.5 hours and ended when Chung choked in tears as he spoked about the last day of #AppleDaily in June 2021.

* Chung told the court that after #NSL came in force, he decided to stop publishing any commentary that advocated for independence and separation of any part of China, however, he did not set such a red line for #StandNews reporting.

* "If a political figure with public attention indeed raised such a proposition, we believed we should still let our readers know instead of filtering it out, otherwise, some readers might believe that person was rather moderate and trust-worthy."

* "I don't want to set such a red line for my colleagues because it's too vague to grasp. And once censorship is in, many things will be difficult to judge...it can easily usher in unnecessary self-censorship and lead to incomplete reporting - which is not truthful."

* Chung said new reports and feature stories by #StandNews strived to include different opinions and to get as close as possible to the truth. "I can't say each and every one of our reports found the whole truth...if we didn't, we would make clear what was missing and why."

* In response to the allegation of publishing "seditious articles", Chung said he does not quite understand what "sedition" means. "Everything we wrote and published was what we genuinely believed to be worth publishing. Is this intention seditious? I don't think so."

* Chung told the court that #StandNews made a few decision in light of arrests of #AppleDaily executives - including Chung's wife Chan Pui-man - and the shuttering of the newspaper in order to because "threats and pressure became very tangible".

* The most important decisions, Chung said, was to remove more than 30,000 articles from contributors. "It doesn't mean that I found the content problematic. On the contrary, at that time, I could not tell what was not problematic."

* Other decisions included ceasing to receive public donations, clearing all severance payments for staff who worked more than 6 months for #StandNews, and signing new contracts in order to minimise financial loss of the staff in case the news outlet suffered "abnormal death"

* Asked why he kept #StandNews running and did not resign after his wife was arrested and what happened to #AppleDaily, Chung said he was "unwilling and not resigned to let go". "Our work was meaningful and interesting" "We never thought we had done anything wrong or unlawful"

* Aske why he believed they did nothing wrong, Chung said, "As said in our inaugural statement, we did not have any hidden agenda. We were simply reporting about events and people who were of significance and public interest. We truly believed...

...that was for the benefit of our society, particularly our civil society. I even believed that was for the benefit of our country. Sufficient freedom of speech, accurate record of facts, and free public debates of opinions no matter how fierce they might be...

...would bring progress to our society and meet the best interest of our community. I simply believed that was how we worked through and through, and we did not change due to any laws. Since we did not change, we should continue to do what we did."

* Chung wept a few times when he talked about how he had to finally resign from #StandNews for family reason. Since his wife was charged and denied bail in July 2021, he visited her everyday and found himself incapable of discharging his duty as #StandNews chief editor.

* "Although in June (2021) I thought we should not close down, in late September and October, I indeed considered that but...I couldn't just let go...I planned to resign so to ease my family's concern. My wife was already behind bars, my family, including her...

...didn't want me to take any risk, although in my own assessment, my resignation wouldn't make much difference in of what I had to face later as a target. But I didn't want my family to worry, and I couldn't discharge my duty so I planned to resign."

* Chung on the witness stand, apologised to Patrick Lam, his successor and now a co-defendant who was sitting in the defendant's dock on the other side of the courtroom. Chung said he felt sorry for having Lam to fill in his place and take the risk...

..."I didn't want my colleagues to bear risks, I didn't want my family to worry, I must ease their concern, but I didn't want to close down #StandNews. I had to make a decision," Chung said.

* Chung said he was surprised to learn that Patrick Lam was arrested alongside with him in 2021. "Why must he be arrested and charged? I was very upset. It appeared that I failed to protect all my colleagues," he said.

* In the afternoon, defense counsel Audrey Eu presented 17 sets of #StandNews reports that were covering acts and words of people supporting the governments of Hong Kong and China in response to various controversial incidents.

* Asked why #StandNews chose to report about these people and opinions, Chung said it was still about public interest. "We usually just presented what they said straightly without any spinning and seasoning...so readers could be sufficiently informed to make their decisions."

* Chung refuted the prosecution's allegations that #StandNews beautified certain people and smeared some others, or did so in order to please its readers. "I never have the thought of pleasing readers...all we wrote was on the basis of facts," Chung said.

* Chung rejected the allegation that some comments on #StandNews social media posts were proof of the posts' seditious effects. "I wouldn't agree that our certain report or post incited certain comments. On the contrary, the public sentiments behind the comments were always there

...they were not incited by certain article or report or feature story. Some might seize a chance, when he read an article or saw a headline, it triggered him to express."

* Chung said #StandNews tried to weed out some comments on Facebook with the platform's function to catch comments according to some pre-sent keywords, after #NSL came in force, but they found the function not very effective and comments could easily escape.

"We tried to tolerate various comments as much as possible...most of them were genuinely expressing an opinion...comments do not represent our won stand because they could be contradicting. We tried not to interfere and let readers say what they wanted to say," Chung said.