Hong Kong police have arrested a journalist from Boom News on suspicion of incitement by spreading disinformation 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 that resulted in their arrests. The pair were under investigation during their detention, while police's arrest operation continued, it said.
Police previously also arrested six other people for the same alleged offense, and they were released on bail, the statement added. During anti-government protests in 2019, police carried out a controversial operation inside a subway station on Aug. 31 causing what some protesters at the time believed were deaths. Authorities have denied such claims, and police said Wednesday that the “Aug. 31 incident” was baseless.
Boom News has over 66,000 followers on Instagram and its reports covered a range of issues, including political and social issues in Hong Kong. In a video it posted on Instagram on Aug. 31, a woman said it was unknown whether people died that day seven years ago. It reported that police took away at least two people.
The Hong Kong Journalists Association said Tang’s detention was the first publicly known arrest of a journalist for alleged sedition under the 2024 law and expressed deep concern. It said the outlet that filmed Tang being escorted away by police had quoted anonymous sources stating his arrest was connected to his live broadcast on Aug. 31. Hong Kong journalists have been operating in a narrower space under drastic political changes following the enactment of a Beijing-imposed national security law in 2020.
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