Hong Kong police arrest journalist from online news outlet over alleged sedition

HONG KONG -- Hong Kong police on Wednesday arrested a journalist from an online news outlet on suspicion of incitement by spreading disinformation, local media reported, raising concerns about the city's press freedom. Multiple local news outlets, including newspaper Sing Tao and the South China Morning Post, said Tang Ho-wing, founder of Boom News, was arrested in the morning, quoting unidentified sources. A photo on Sing Tao's website showed Tang being brought away by officers wearing vests marked with “Police." Police said late Wednesday that a man and a woman were arrested on suspicion of carrying out seditious acts, an offense under a homegrown national security law enacted in 2024. They did not identify them. The South China Morning Post reported that the woman was activist Lee Ying-chi.The statement said police found some people holding flowers outside a subway station on Aug. 31 and chanting seditious slogans. Those people were suspected of having spread disinformation and using lies to attack the government and smear the police, with the intent to incite hatred against the government and law enforcement departments, it said. But it did not specify what Tang and Lee did tha...