Thread by @XinqiSu

#CONTINUE Chung Pui-kuen is on the witness stand for the 3rd day. Today defense counsel Audrey Eu began to ask Chung questions about how the prosecution described what happened in Hong Kong in 2019 and after #NSL came in force and the 17 "seditious" articles.

For background this is an old thread about the prosecution's case against #StandNews and what "judicial notice" they wanted the court to take in order to determine the nature of the offence:

https://twitter.com/XinqiSu/status/1587405957239566336?s=20&t=sJ58YNJUgXUUV_kp7AHQhA

The prosecution cited the opening paragraph describing HK's situation since the protests in 2019 in a resolution by the NPCSC on May 28, 2020 to enact an #NSL for Hong Kong. The paragraph said since the #antiELAB protests in 2019, "anti-China destabilising forces in Hong Kong"...

...incited violence and advocated for HK independence, foreign forces interfered with HK affairs, and the bottom line of #OneCountryTwoSystems was seriously challenged.

Asked how he understood the protests 2019, Chung said,

"I had the strong feeling that the social mobilisation at that time was very wide. It went beyond the boundaries of social classes and professional areas. People were connected with different identities, reaching out from their own circles and interests, to oppose the amendment."

"I was rather surprised that a law that didn't seem closely related to ordinary people and that seemed to have a just reason for amendment triggered such widespread opposition. In hindsight, it reflected what HK people had been worried and alerted about for many years -

- that their freedom might be undermined or stripped of. I later thought that, in the past 20 to 30 years, the several large scale social movement in HK were not about material benefits or personal interests...instead, they were centred about some, you may say abstract...

...but also very important values, and all these values go back to one thing, that is called freedom."

Chung told the court that in his observation, in the early to middle stage of the movement, most protesters' primary demand was for the government to withdraw the proposed amendment of the extradition bill. The demand for independent inquiry into alleged police brutality...

...rose and surpassed withdrawal of the amendment to be a top priority in July and reached a climax after the Yuen Long attack on 21 July 2019.

Chung said not only police could be hostile to reporters covering the protests, protesters could be as well, raising an example of readers lodging huge demands online for #StandNews to remove certain photos or videos which they thought might expose protesters' identities.

"But I believe as long as something happened in a public space and it concerns public interest, media can record it. Our role is not to protect any one," Chung said.

"On the other hand, if we lined up an interview with a protester or participant, and they demanded anonymity...

...in order to protect themselves, we as the news outlet, must defend to our death the confidentiality of their identity."

"In the past 10 to 20 years, I indeed thought about risk of being jailed as a journalist, but that was in the scenario of refusing to disclose my sources."

Asked how he understands the protest slogan "Liberate Hong Kong" , Chung said "liberate" could mean differently for different people. "The most common interpretation as far as I understand is to preserve some values that used to belong to HK, that they are afraid of losing."

The prosecution asked the court to take "judicial notice" that even with #NSL, HK still had many "undercurrents and political bombs...that could destroy the government's authority and #OneCountryTwoSystems". Chung said, social movements had died down a lot after #NSL...

..."but in my understanding, social movements are unnecessarily political bombs. They could be expressions of public sentiments. One social movement is not sufficient to destroy a government's authority or overturn #OneCountryTwoSystems."

Chung also told the court that he does not understand the word "anti-China and trouble-rousing elements in Hong Kong" 反中亂港 that has been frequently used by the authorities in recent years. "I can't grasp the accurate definition so I can't tell who it's referring to"

Chung said #StandNews didn't hype the movement or promote unlawful resistance. "Our intention was not that complicated. Our intention was very simple which was to produce quality news, record facts and report truth. We tried to introduce opinions from all walks of life...

...regarding controversial matters. We wanted to build a better basis on which the public could be better informed, could debate and discuss, and hopefully the civil society could reach certain consensus on some controversial issues or policies."

Asked about his understanding of the concept of "laam chau" 攬炒, Chung said different people had different interpretations but a common proposition of the advocates was to carry on resistance regardless of how much it might cost.

"The costs might be interruption of the society's normal operations, might be long lasting civil disobedience. Might it also include promoting violence? I dare not to say no but different people may understand it differently. "

Asked why #StandNews did no remove interviews with the pro-dem primaries' candidates after the authorities in HK and Beijing said the election was unlawful, Chung said, "whether it was unlawful is not determined by any administrative institution...

...not any pro-establishment legislators, not even the few central government departments, so we would definitely keep reporting", "Even after a while the primaries was convicted, the original interviews and articles - if there was a chance - should not be removed...

...because they are historical records, they were records of facts at that time...till the time #StandNews closed down, the primaries case had not been convicted."

Chung rejected the accusation that #StandNews was building momentum for the 3 primaries candidates Gwyneth Ho, Owen Chow and Fergus Leung by running profile stories of them. "They were young, emerging political figures who had news values for news outlets...

...and if you looked at the time (of publication), two profiles were published after the primaries , and after he (Leung) was disqualified (from running in the official election) so there was no momentum to build."

Chung said news reports by #StandNews did not contain any advocacy. "We would record, would try to explain, we might do some analysis, but there was no advocacy. Reports and commentaries are two separate categories. We had blogs and commentaries...

...Bloggers might have different advocacies but those did not represent #StandNews. Advocacies and appeals of our bloggers were of all sorts and sometimes contradicting each other."

The prosecution singled out a phrase "police brutality is a fact" in a direct quote from Gwyneth Ho in an interview done before the primaries as part of the evidence of the article's seditious nature. The whole quote was "police brutality is a fact, we must record that...

...protesters brought destruction is also a fact, we must record that too“. Asked whether he found the saying seditious, Chung said, "her remark had certain factual basis and could be subject to further discussions. We could debate if police brutality was a fact...

...what political actions or policy changes might be led to. There is no reason to say that's seditious when a political figure said so. In that case the chilling effect would be too great. Anyone could have some simplified understanding of some social issues...

...if a remark like that could fall into the scope of sedition, you could imagine the chilling effect would be so large that it wouldn't benefit social development."

Chung said reporting about controversies surrounding the primaries was not to glorify anyone or to undermine the government as the prosecution alleged. "Some people might criticise, they might point out mistakes by the government, by the law enforcements...

...even by the judiciary. Those should be allowed as part of free speech. The most important purpose of free speech is to tolerate these voices. This is how keeping the power and powerful in check works. You might say the criticism was wrong...

...you might refute and argue but you can't criminalise people as sedition for dissenting and criticising."

Defense counsel Audrey Eu said the prosecution might say, free speech is not unlimited. Chung responded, "When I heard that free speech is not absolute, the first thought I had was restrictions on free speech should not be absolute."

Chung said he had profound understanding of the importance of freedoms of speech and press because in the first 30 years since PRC was founded 1949, a number of serious disasters took place because of the lack of such freedoms as many studies have found.

"These lessons are profound. So you would cherish more the freedom of speech. You can't arbitrarily restrict it unless there are ample reasons. You can't drew such vague lines in laws. It will easily bring chilling effect and grave harm to free speech."