Hong Kong press freedom erodes at world-leading pace
FORUM Staff
Hong Kong, once a bastion of free speech and press freedom, is losing its true voice. With the rapid disappearance of thorough, balanced reporting by independent journalists, Hong Kong “news” now consists of one-sided, coverage professing the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) viewpoints, observers say.
No nation or territory tumbled farther than Hong Kong from 2021 to 2022 in Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF’s) annual assessment of global press freedom. Among 180 nations and major territories evaluated by journalists and other media workers, Hong Kong dropped 68 places — from 80 to 148 — on the World Press Freedom Index.
Twenty years ago, it was ranked 18th.
Hong Kong’s plummeting status is attributed to fallout from a national security law imposed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in June 2020 after a surge of pro-democracy protests. The ambiguous law, which imposes harsh prison sentences and other penalties for offenses such as secession, subversion, terrorism or collusion with foreign forces, has crippled dissemination of evenhanded, insightful reporting in Hong Kong, opponents say. (Pictured: Supporters of a journalist accused of making a false statement protest outside a Hong Kong court in November 2020.)
Hong Kong’s reputation as an open society where free speech and diverse opinions prevail has taken a hit since the law took effect, and it now finds itself among the worst offenders on the latest World Press Freedom Index, including the PRC (175), Myanmar (176) and North Korea (180).
Simultaneously, Hong Kong residents’ satisfaction with press freedom has dropped to a record low, according to a March 2022 poll by the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute. Barely 28% of respondents said they were satisfied with press freedom, the lowest percentage since the survey began in 1997.
Such ramifications of the national security law violate the agreement in which the United Kingdom transferred control of its former colony to the PRC in 1997, U.K. official say. The deal stipulated that Hong Kong was to retain much of its autonomy until at least 2047.
The demise of free speech is exemplified by government crackdowns on independent news outlets, including the pro-democracy Apple Daily, which was closed in June 2021 after publishing stories critical of the PRC. The newspaper’s owner, Jimmy Lai, was jailed, its staff members were arrested and its bank accounts were frozen.
In December 2021, Strand News shut down after seven current and former employees were detained in a police raid. Two former top editors were accused of suspicion of conspiring to publish seditious material.
Citizen News closed a week later. Co-founder Chris Yeung, former president of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, said: “Journalists are people too, with families and friends, and we need to take the fact that this is an unsafe environment seriously.”
Thirteen Hong Kong journalists are imprisoned on allegations they violated the national security law, according to RSF. Others have left the city, with some exiled journalists covering Hong Kong from overseas, Radio Free Asia recently reported.
“The law is devastating in that it appears to have no bounds,” Sophie Richardson, the China director at Human Rights Watch, told The New York Times newspaper. “Hong Kong activists, accustomed to operating in [a] mostly rights-respecting environment, now face a frightening void.”
Advocates of free speech were dealt another blow in May 2022 when hardliner John Lee, who oversaw the crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in 2019, was elected Hong Kong’s chief executive by a select committee of Beijing loyalists. Lee had no opposition.
Free speech is critical in a democracy, because it encourages awareness and discussion. Members of a free society need balanced reporting and diverse opinions to hold governments accountable, expose corruption and collectively make decisions that benefit the society and individual citizens, experts say.
“If you don’t have facts, you can’t have truth,” Philippine journalist Maria Reesa, co-winner of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, told The Associated Press. “You can’t have trust. You don’t have a shared reality.”
IMAGE CREDIT: ASSOCIATED PRESS
