In May, the US administration of President Joe Biden urged tech giants to ramp up efforts to curb anti-Semitic content on their platforms. Representatives from companies, including Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, TikTok and X, met with US special envoy Deborah Lipstadt to explore ways to monitor and combat antisemitism. During the meeting, Lipstadt requested that each company designate a policy team member to tackle the issue.

Over the past several months, the US campus nonviolent student protest movement in solidarity with Palestine has met with a draconian crackdown, including a “stunning display of police brutality”, which was depicted by The Guardian as “shocking attacks on freedom of expression and assembly on campus”, as a result, “campuses have been home to canceled speakers and events, arbitrary disciplinary hearings, and outright censorship”.

Regardless of the politics involved, the palpable message from the US authority’s resolute crackdown on what it sees as anti-Semitic social media content as well as nonviolent student protests is that “freedom of expression” is not without boundaries in the United States.  

Yet, Matthew Miller, a spokesperson for the US state department, obviously does not believe that the same principle on the exercise of “freedom of expression” applies in Hong Kong.  

After two former chief editors of the now-defunct online media outlet Stand News were found guilty of sedition for publishing 11 articles deemed by a Hong Kong court to possess the potential to incite societal unrest, Miller made no bones about censuring the verdict as “a direct attack on media freedom”.

The articles in question, which were published amid the heated political environment after monthslong riots in Hong Kong in 2019-20, were found by the court to have incitement intent and were deemed to pose risks to national security and public order. They attacked the laws implemented in Hong Kong, including some that have been in effect since British rule, without presenting any objective basis. They incited hatred against both the central and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region governments, the Hong Kong Police Force and Hong Kong’s Judiciary by spreading false information while glorifying the acts of the rioters, and provoked readers to seek changes to legally established matters through illegal means.

Stand News had been promoting the “localism” political ideology, supported and facilitated the “self-determination” movement in Hong Kong, and it became a tool for smearing and vilifying Beijing and the HKSAR government during the anti-extradition bill movement, the judge responsible for the case concluded when explaining the establishment of the incitement intent in this case. In Hong Kong’s political context, both “localism” and “self-determination” are euphemisms for “Hong Kong independence”.

Obviously, while pursuing different political goals, the nature of the two former Stand News editors’ offenses is no different to that of Enrique Tarrio, former leader of US right-wing group Proud Boys — seeking changes to legally established matters through illegal means.  

Tarrio was sentenced, in September 2023, to 22 years in prison for his role in the Jan 6, 2021, US Capitol attack. He did not participate in the attack but was convicted merely for “inspiring followers with his charisma and penchant for propaganda” from afar.

The offenses and the laws invoked in the cases of Stand News and Tarrio are different. But the convictions demonstrate a commonality: Unlawful acts that seek changes to legally established institutions are prohibited and punishable by law. Indeed, this principle is universally applicable in the world.

The two former Stand News editors were charged and convicted not for their identity as media workers but for having committed an offense under the then Crimes Ordinance, laws inherited from the British era.

Western critics, including the last British governor of Hong Kong Chris Patten and Amnesty International’s China Director Sarah Brooks, have tried to blur the picture by emphasizing the defendants’ profession, with the latter claiming that the two former Stand News editors “have been targeted simply for doing their legitimate journalistic work”.

But since when have inciting hatred against the authorities, instigating people to seek changes to legally established matters through illegal means and promoting separatism become part of “legitimate journalistic work”? Would those Western critics defend US and UK media outlets had they done the same things under similar situations? Would Western societies accept the notion that inciting hatred against the police and vilifying the judiciary fall under the scope of “legitimate journalistic work”?  

The offense of sedition has been commonly established in Western jurisdictions. For example, in the US, sedition is defined as inciting revolt or violence against a lawful authority to destroy or overthrow it. In Canada, sedition is the use of speech or words to incite others to rebel against the government or governing authority. In Australia, a person is guilty of incitement or sedition if they intentionally urge another person to overthrow by force or violence the Constitution, the government of the commonwealth or a state or territory, or the lawful authority of the government of the commonwealth.

The Western critics who denigrated Hong Kong’s law enforcement actions against acts threatening national security or public order as “encroachment” of freedom of expression (or of the press) have exhibited sheer hypocrisy and double standards.    

As for Patten, who has harbored undiluted animosity against Beijing after failing to push through his radical political reform package in Hong Kong before the city’s 1997 handover, any rebuttal of his remarks on Hong Kong is a flattery to him.  

The author is a current affairs commentator. 

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.