Hong Kong's National Security Department arrested Deng Hoon, founder of Boom News: live “8.31” in memory of the inclusion of the incitement investigation

On 30 September, the National Security Service of the Hong Kong Police Service arrested Deng Hoon, founder and journalist of the independent news media, for allegedly “incitement to publish false information” in a live report outside the Hong Kong Metro Prince station on 31 August this year. The police arrested several people in the same day and in the previous days, including former members of the social-minority company and the dentist Yingxi Li; Together with the first round of operations in early September, the number of arrests has increased to eight.

The case links the public memory of the Prince's Station 8-31 incident in 2019, independent journalists live and article 24 of the Regulations on the Protection of National Security, which came into force in 2024 in Hong Kong, to the same national security investigation. (b) Police claim that the night was marked by a man holding a flower beam outside the Prince's station, shouting inflammatory slogans and referring to the memorial as being based on the “unsubstantiated” claim; The blogger says that the police are using the yellow umbrella to broadcast the video.

From the flowers to the live: 8 arrests in three rounds within one month at the National Security Service

On 3 September, the police first arrested two men and one woman, aged 33 to 79, including former District Councillors Von Jianwen and Chen Chong Xu, for alleged violation of article 24 of the Regulations on the Protection of National Security. From 27 to 28 September, the State Security Service arrested one man and two women; On the morning of September 30th, another 37-year-old Deng Hoon and 58-year-old Lee Yingzhi were arrested. The police obtained court search warrants to search the residence of the arrested person and to retrieve his belongings, and all the most recent arrests were detained for investigation.

The Hong Kong Police have publicly described the acts outside the Prince's station on 31 August as being classified as: hand-held bouquets of mourning, displaying slogans or objects, shouting slogans, and live live broadcasting by Internet correspondents. The police alleged that these acts were allegedly used to spread false information about the so-called “event of 8-31”, to attack the HKSAR Government and the police force, and to attempt to provoke hatred of the Government and the law enforcement authorities.

The Boom News, run by Deng Hoon, relies mainly on social media for news and live street broadcasting. He graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and was a journalist in the Chinese University of Chinese University and the Gordon News Station, developing personal media after 2020 in the name of “blast head”. Reporters without Borders stated on 30 September that Deng was an independent journalist and linked the arrest directly to the coverage of the seventh anniversary of August 31 by Boom News.

Article 24 includes “inducing hatred and disaffection” in the criminal context, with a maximum sentence of 7 years

(a) Article 24 of the Regulations on the Protection of National Security, which entered into force in March 2024, provides that anyone who commits an act with incitement, makes the statement in question or prints, publishes, sells, displays or reproduces the publication with the knowledge that the publication has incitement, shall be guilty of an offence punishable by up to seven years ' imprisonment under the procedure of public prosecution; The maximum penalty may be further increased if it involves collusion with outside forces.

The Ordinance defines “incitement” as including hatred, contempt or dissatisfaction with the fundamental system of China, the central institutions, the constitutional order and the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the HKSAR, and hatred or hostility between residents of different regions. At the same time, the regulations also set out a number of situations that did not constitute incitement, such as providing advice for the improvement of the system, identifying institutional issues and proposing improvements, and contributing to change in a legal manner.

Thus, what is really needed next in the Dun Hoon case is what specific live content, statements or acts the police refers to as “incitement” and how the prosecution, if it does, will prove that the interview and live broadcast of a live journalist crossed the line between press coverage and criminal liability under article

1. The overall characterization of the incident by the police, which is currently disclosed in public, has not yet been reflected in the prosecution ' s full indictment against Deng Hoon.

“8.31” from the 2019 police-civilian conflict memory to the 2026 national security law enforcement target

On the evening of 31 August 2019, during the Hong Kong Anti-Code Campaign, riot police entered the Hong Kong Iron Prince Station (Hong Kong) coach to enforce the law and arrested many people. The Internet has since been spreading accounts of deaths in action; The Hong Kong police and the Government have repeatedly denied that someone died at the Prince's station and have described the death in question as false information. Meanwhile, the long-standing display of flowers, memorials and memorials outside the Prince's station has made 8/31 a part of Hong Kong's political memory.

The 2026 round of arrests showed that the focus of the law enforcement system had been extended beyond one death to a single death story, to a collection of flowers, slogans, slogans and live media broadcasts around “8/31”. The police, in their statement of 30 September, referred to the memorial as “false mourning” and linked it to incitement to hatred by the Government and the police.

This change deserves special attention, as article 24 does not require incitement to lead to violence. After the Ordinance was enacted in 2024, the same provision was used by the State Security Service of Hong Kong in the form of a commemorative post, political slogans, clothing, books, shop displays and web-based communications. In July 2026, the State Security Service also arrested five persons for displaying and selling publications that were deemed to be incitement by the police.

Journalists became arrested, making the case directly accessible to the independent media space of Hong Kong

RSF asked Hong Kong authorities to release Deng Hoon on 30 September, claiming that this was another case of criminal pressure on independent journalists in Hong Kong. According to the organization, Boom News has been subjected to tax censorship in the past few years, along with other independent media in Hong Kong, and has counted a number of journalists and freedom of information advocates who have been prosecuted or faced legal proceedings since the implementation of the Hong Kong National Security Act in 2020.

The Government of Hong Kong has long maintained that the national security laws are not about normal journalism for acts that endanger national security, and has stated that freedom of the press and expression is guaranteed under the law. In the present case, the most critical factual issues will be determined by the subsequent legal proceedings: which specific information was named as “published” by Deng Hoon; The police found the live broadcast, the sentence or the act on the spot to be incitement; Journalists record whether the gravitation and slogans of others themselves are part of the allegations.

This case is therefore not just a detention for the commemoration of 8/31. The State Security Service has included an independent journalist who reports on the events on the scene in the article 24 investigation, which carries a maximum penalty of seven years. As the number of co-arrests rose to eight, new legal conflicts were taking place in Hong Kong around public memory, live remembrance and news coverage of the 2019 protests, within the framework of a set of national security law enforcement.