Hong Kong’s traditionally free press is increasingly under assault from the city’s police, censorship by media owners, and violent intimidation, according to a new report.
The New York-based writers’ group PEN American Center says police at times appeared to target journalists during the protests that shook the city last year, the New York Times reports. Students in Hong Kong—a city that has enjoyed significantly more freedoms than mainland China since it was returned to Beijing’s control in 1997—flooded the streets to protest a ruling that ensured China would hold substantial sway over the election of the city’s next chief executive.
While some journalists said the Hong Kong police granted them access to cover the protests, conditions have worsened due to pressure from China:
But the PEN report dwells on longer-term trends that it says have narrowed the range of news and views available to the city’s residents, a concern that journalists in Hong Kong have also raised. Many media owners and advertisers in Hong Kong hold big commercial stakes in mainland China and have increasingly tailored their reporting, or advertising orders, to please the authorities there, the report said.
"With most print and online media organizations in Hong Kong owned by figures with business interests in mainland China, critics argue that Hong Kong’s self-regulation has led to self-censorship in favor of those interests," the report says. […]
"Last year was the darkest year for Hong Kong’s press freedom since I started working in journalism back in 1981," Sham Yee-lan, the chairwoman of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, said in an interview.
Ms. Sham said there were more than 28 attacks on journalists during last year’s street protests. She said: "Many assailants were upset by certain publications’ news coverage and tried to vent their anger at their front-line reporters."
Attackers threw gasoline bombs at the home and offices of media tycoon Jimmy Lai earlier this week, apparently in retaliation for his support of the pro-democracy demonstrations. Assailants with meat cleavers also stabbed former newspaper editor Kevin Lau in February. The paper replaced him with a pro-Beijing editor.
The intimidation in Hong Kong comes as Chinese authorities have ramped up their repression of dissidents and journalists on the mainland.