(Bloomberg) — Hong Kong national security police arrested the head of a journalists’ organization on a colonial-era sedition charge, according to local media, as the city’s crackdown on press freedoms ramps up.
Ronson Chan, chairman of Hong Kong Journalists Association and deputy assignment editor at Stand News, was arrested Wednesday morning, local news website HK01 reported, citing people it did not identify. Five other current and former Stand News executives were also arrested, HK01 reported, and police searched its offices.
Hong Kong’s government said in a statement that six current and former senior employees of an online media company were arrested by national security police on a charge of conspiring to publish seditious materials under the Crimes Ordinance, without providing names.
Those arrests come a day after Jimmy Lai, founder of the now-closed Apple Daily newspaper, was charged with conspiracy to produce and distribute seditious publications, along with six of his former staffers. The jailed 74-year-old has become the focus of the government’s legal attack on the pro-democracy camp.
Since Beijing passed a sweeping national security law last year the Hong Kong government has imposed strict curbs on free speech. Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said over the summer that “a law needs to be introduced” to police what the media publishes.
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