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© Photograph: Gustavo Garello/AP

© Photograph: Gustavo Garello/AP

© Photograph: Gustavo Garello/AP

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The Hong Kong government and legislature have condemned Reporters Without Borders (RSF) after the city was ranked low in the NGO’s annual press freedom index.

They also hit out after German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) awarded jailed media tycoon and Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai a press freedom prize.

In RSF’s 2026 global press freedom index, released on Thursday, Hong Kong was ranked 140th out of 180 countries and territories – the same position as last year. The press freedom NGO highlighted the 20-year sentence handed down to Lai, who was convicted last year under the security law.

On the same day, DW – which accepts German federal funding – presented its 12th Freedom of Speech Award to the imprisoned 78-year-old.

Efforts to ‘slander, smear’

In response, the Hong Kong government issued a press release on Friday, saying it “strongly condemned the attempts by an anti-China organisation and foreign media to sugarcoat the criminal acts of national security offender [Jimmy] Lai Chee-ying and to slander, smear, as well as attack the HKSAR by releasing a so-called press freedom index and presenting a so-called ‘award’. Such despicable behaviours totally disregarded the rule of law and twisted the facts, which must be strongly condemned.”

It cited 156 days of public hearings and 2,220 pieces of evidence during Lai’s trial. “These are the testaments to the fact that Lai Chee-ying and other defendants were found guilty only after a fair trial,” it said.

“The suggestion that any persons or organisations with certain backgrounds should be immune from legal sanctions for their illegal acts and activities is tantamount to granting such persons privileges to break the law and is totally contrary to the spirit of the rule of law.”

Lai’s trial was overseen by security law judges selected by the city’s leader. He was denied his first choice of lawyer.

The statement added that Lai had “colluded with foreign forces to beg for sanctions and engaged in hostile activities,” with the court hearing that Lai had sought to invite sanctions upon the territory through his media platforms and appearances.

The press release named RSF, claiming that the NGO is funded by the US and EU and that its rankings lack credibility. The government also called RSF “a tool for anti-China forces.”

The same condemnation was echoed hours later by the Legislative Council (LegCo) Secretariat.

In a separate statement, the LegCo Secretariat said it “strongly condemned the release of a so-called press freedom index by a foreign media organisation and presentation of a so-called award to the national security offender Lai Chee-ying to sugarcoat his criminal acts, and smear the press freedom and rule of law” in Hong Kong.

“LegCo urges the international community to recognise the facts and immediately stop making any groundless, fact-distorting, misleading and malicious attacks against Hong Kong,” it added.

Defending journalism ‘not anti-China’

RSF’s Aleksandra Bielakowska – who was denied entry to the city in 2024 – responded to the Hong Kong authorities in a LinkedIn post on Saturday.

“To make it clear once again: defending journalism is not ‘anti-China’; it is pro–press freedom,” she said. “At RSF, we stand arm in arm with Hong Kong journalists. We will not be intimidated and we continue supporting all media in Hong Kong, with the hope that one day we will see positive change and that the city will return to its golden years as an exemplar and beacon of press freedom.”

At 140th place on RSF’s press freedom index, between Rwanda and Syria, Hong Kong remains in the “red zone” – meaning a “very serious” situation. In 2002, the city was in 18th place, and in 2019, it was at 73rd place.

But between 2021 and 2022, it fell from 80 to 148, after Apple Daily and other independent media outlets shuttered amid the onset of the security legislation.

Hong Kong has plummeted in international press freedom indices since the onset of the 2020 and 2024 security laws. Watchdogs cite the arrest and jailing of journalists, raids on newsrooms and the closure of around 10 media outlets including Apple Daily, Stand News and Citizen News. Over 1,000 journalists have lost their jobs, whilst many have emigrated. Meanwhile, the city’s government-funded broadcaster RTHK has adopted new editorial guidelines, purged its archives and axed news and satirical shows.

See also: Explainer: Hong Kong’s press freedom under the national security law

In 2022, Chief Executive John Lee said press freedom was “in the pocket” of Hongkongers but “nobody is above the law.” Although he has told the press to “tell a good Hong Kong story,” government departments have been reluctant to respond to story pitches.

Yesterday, in a prelude to World Press Freedom Day, Anthony Feinstein for The Globe and Mail checked in on the history of political cartooning holding those in power to account from the beginning to now, sometimes risking the cartoonists’ freedom and lives. When political cartoonists challenge the world’s most powerful people. (Or here.) The strongman […]

Since Beijing imposed a national security law in Hong Kong in 2020, the city has seen the closure of independent media outlets, journalists jailed, newsrooms raided and government tax audits that appear to disproportionately target the media sector.

Hong Kong has plummeted in a global press freedom index. It now ranks 140th in the annual Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index, down from 73rd in 2019, whilst Chief Executive John Lee has said that press freedom remains intact. HKFP rounds up incidents that indicate how the city’s media landscape has changed.

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April 2026

• A Hong Kong press union warned that the stalking of journalists has a “chilling effect” on press freedom, after the Security Bureau slammed the group over “groundless speculations” that law enforcement may have tailed reporters from local news outlet InMedia.
• Chief Secretary Warner Cheuk said journalists will not be permitted to tag along with survivors of the deadly Tai Po fire when they return to their flats to collect their belongings.
• Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said that a French journalist was denied entry to Hong Kong in November, accusing the city’s authorities of “weaponising visas” against foreign media workers.

• Hong Kong remains at 140th place on Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) global press freedom index of 180 countries and territories, with the NGO highlighting the 20-year sentence handed down to Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai earlier this year.

March 2026

• Hong Kong’s High Court dismissed the Hong Kong Journalists’ Association’s legal challenge against government restrictions on media access to the vehicle registry, years after the government lost in a landmark case concerning a journalist’s use of the registry to obtain records of vehicles involved in the 2019 Yuen Long mob attack
• Yahoo Hong Kong announced it will begin winding down its news operation in line with its “strategic evaluation and long-term business planning.” An employee in Yahoo Hong Kong’s news content division confirmed to HKFP that the company would cease publishing original reports from April.
• Hong Kong independent bookseller Pong Yat-ming and three of his staff were reportedly arrested on suspicion of selling seditious titles, including a biography of jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai.

• Three companies linked to the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper became “prohibited organisations” after the Hong Kong government removed them from the corporate registry.
• A former top editor of Apple Daily filed an appeal against his 10-year jail term in a high-profile national security case.

February 2026

• Pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai was sentenced to 20 years in jail following his conviction for conspiring to collude with foreign powers and conspiring to publish seditious materials. Six former Apple Daily staff who worked for Lai were jailed for 10 years for conspiring to collude with foreign powers.
• The government began the process to de-register three companies linked to the Apple Daily newspaper and list them as “prohibited organisations.”
• An appeals court overturned pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai‘s fraud conviction relating to an alleged lease violation at the now-shuttered Apple Daily newspaper headquarters.
• Jimmy Lai will not appeal against his national security conviction and 20-year jail term, his lawyer has said.

January 2026

• The government granted the Hong Kong’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club a new three-year lease at its historic Central location.
• Authorities slammed the BBC over what it said was an “unfounded report” about pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai’s health conditions while in prison.
• The government-funded broadcaster stopped publishing all of its podcasts, with dozens of shows – in English and Chinese – grinding to a halt on Spotify and RTHK’s self-hosted Podcast One platform.
• Hong Kong’s top judge criticised calls to release Jimmy Lai fter the pro-democracy media mogul’s conviction on foreign collusion and sedition charges, saying that such demands “strike at the very heart of the rule of law.”
• Former Wall Street Journal reporter Selina Cheng denied intentionally concealing from Hong Kong’s labour authorities her request for a HK$3 million settlement from the American newspaper, whom she is suing for wrongful termination.
• Hong Kong authorities slammed the European Parliament’s calls for sanctions against Chief Executive John Lee and other officials following the conviction of pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai in his national security trial last month.
• A court heard during an ex-employee’s wrongful dismissal suit that Wall Street Journal was only willing to meet for mediation talks under certain “conditions.”

December 2025

• Running for chairperson of the Hong Kong Journalists Association is a “legally protected right,” journalist Selina Cheng said, as her wrongful dismissal lawsuit against her former employer continued.
• China’s foreign affairs ministry in Hong Kong summoned the representatives of the US and the UK consulates general following “interfering” remarks made about the conviction of pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai.
• Hong Kong journalist Selina Cheng denied that financial compensation is the primary reason for suing The Wall Street Journal, saying she wants to hold her former employer accountable.
• The Wall Street Journal sought to halt a private prosecution brought by former employee Selina Cheng, who accuses the paper of firing her after she became chair of the local press union.
• Hong Kong’s policy bureaus rallied behind the High Court’s verdict against Apple Daily tycoon Jimmy Lai under the city’s Beijing-imposed national security law.
• US President Donald Trump said he wanted his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to free Jimmy Lai as he voiced sadness over the Hong Kong media mogul’s conviction.
• Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai was found guilty of collusion and sedition charges in his national security trial.
• China’s national security agency in Hong Kong summoned international media representatives for a “regulatory talk”, saying some had spread false information and smeared the government in recent reports on a deadly fire and upcoming legislative elections.
• The Hong Kong government slammed an editorial by The Wall Street Journal, which accuses the city’s authorities of having moved to “silence dissent” after the deadly Tai Po blaze in Tai Po.

November 2025

• A Hong Kong judge rejected jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai’s bid to submit 101 new pieces of evidence in a libel lawsuit against Beijing-backed newspaper Ta Kung Pao, calling them “confusing, embarrassing and defective.”
• The Wall Street Journal pleaded not guilty to the allegedly unlawful firing of Hong Kong journalist Selina Cheng, who has accused the paper of sacking her for taking up leadership of the Hong Kong Journalists Association.
• Hong Kong director Kiwi Chow made an open appeal to the censorship office to “release” his Taiwan-produced film, citing months-long delays in the movie’s approval.

October 2025

• The Hong Kong government rejected a routine UK report calling for the release of jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai ahead of his national security trial verdict, accusing London of “despicable political manoeuvres.”
• Hong Kong press freedom showed a slight rebound from a historic low, according to a trade union’s survey of journalists in the city, reflecting what the group calls the “resilience” of the media sector.
• A total of 50 films had been required to be edited, and 13 titles had not been approved for screening on national security grounds since Hong Kong amended the Film Censorship Ordinance in 2021, according to authorities.

September 2025

• The Hong Kong government vowed to help local media overcome “operational pressures” and expand overseas, with Chief Executive John Lee saying in his Policy Address that he would not “interfere with” their work.
• Hong Kong authorities rejected an “unfounded and biased” European Commission report, which said the rule of law in the city remained under “severe strain” in 2024 due to the implementation of national security legislation.

August 2025

• A newspaper publisher should enjoy a “greater latitude” of freedom of expression as guaranteed by the constitutional right of press freedom, lawyers for jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai has told a Hong Kong court during the closing arguments of his national security trial.
• Bloomberg journalist Rebecca Choong Wilkins was denied a work visa renewal by the Hong Kong Immigration Department, with no reason given, according to the local press club.
• The hearing for closing arguments of Jimmy Lai‘s national security trial was postponed twice, first due to bad weather and then a “medical issue” relating to the media tycoon’s heart.
• Hong Kong’s media regulator was denied a final bid to challenge a lower court’s ruling that a political satire aired by government-funded broadcaster RTHK did not constitute a breach of its code.

July 2025

• Lawyers for the Wall Street Journal indicated the newspaper will plead not guilty in a lawsuit launched by Selina Cheng, Hong Kong Journalists Association chairperson, who accuses the American newspaper of unlawful dismissal after she took the helm of the press union. 
• China’s foreign ministry office in Hong Kong condemned articles published by BBC Chinese and Nikkei Asia, accusing the foreign media outlets of “smearing” the city’s national security law as it marked its fifth anniversary.
• A total of 14 independent publishers will take part in an alternative book festival after some of them were barred from participating in Hong Kong’s official book fair.
• A group of former staff from Hong Kong independent media outlet Channel C launched a new online news platform – Channel We – with the financial support of a “white knight.”

June 2025

• A Hong Kong artist’s stall at an illustration art fair closed after police officers reportedly received complaints, photographed the displayed drawings, and passed them to national security police.
• Hong Kong’s Court of Appeal announced it would hear the appeal application of a former senior editor at defunct media outlet Stand News against his sedition conviction in September next year.
• The new head of Hong Kong’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club told HKFP the press club will “stay the course” under her tenure by supporting journalists and seeking dialogue with governments.
• The Hong Kong Journalists Association voted in a new Executive Committee on Saturday, with freelance journalist Selina Cheng re-elected as chair unopposed.
• The Department of Justice will not intervene in Hong Kong Journalists Association chairperson Selina Cheng’s lawsuit against her ex-employer, the Wall Street Journal, over her alleged unlawful termination after taking on the union’s leadership role.

May 2025

• Hong Kong’s independent news sector, including companies, staff and family members, was facing simultaneous tax audits and backdated demands, the Hong Kong Journalists Association said, adding that the situation reflected a worsening press freedom environment.
• Hong Kong journalists told HKFP that police had stopped them from taking photos and videos of two sites linked to Beijing’s national security office, which are among six designated “prohibited places.”
• A documentary on Hong Kong journalist Ronson Chan was withdrawn from screenings in Taiwan, Canada, the US, and the UK, citing “pressure on the interviewee.”
• Hong Kong tumbled five places, to 140th, in the annual Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index, entering the “red zone” – meaning a “very serious” situation – for the first time, alongside China.
• Following the publication of the annual index, state-backed newspaper Ta Kung Pao blasted Reporters Without Borders, calling the NGO “a political thug” and its press freedom rankings “a political smear tool.”
• Radio Free Asia said it would lay off almost all of its staff and close production in several languages, including a rare Uyghur service, after President Donald Trump cut off funding.

April 2025

• Hong Kong police arrested six people, including at least one director of independent media outlet Channel C’s parent company, for allegedly defrauding a government loan programme of HK$20 million in total.
• One week after the arrest, Channel C halted operations. Authorities say the outlet is behind on pension contributions totalling HK$230,000.
• A survey conducted by the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents Club found that the majority of its members said their working environment had changed for the worse over the past two years.
• Hong Kong’s commerce chief turned down an idea floated by a lawmaker to merge the city’s public broadcaster and the government’s public relations department, saying such a move would be “counterproductive” to official communication work.

March 2025

• The Hong Kong Journalists Association hailed its “best fundraising results in years” from an online auction, which was held after two hotels axed its annual dinner venue reservations.
• Hong Kong’s security chief Chris Tang accused a Ming Pao reporter of attempting to undermine the credibility of the government after the journalist asked why the official did not announce his trip to Thailand.
• Hong Kong’s security chief condemned a legal scholar for “undermining the rule of law” after the latter wrote an opinion piece criticising a court ruling that sent an ex-lawmaker to jail for “rioting” in the Yuen Long attack in 2019.
• Hong Kong’s security chief lashed out at British newspaper The Guardian over an article citing experts criticising a top court ruling on media mogul Jimmy Lai’s appeal as “another cut on the city’s once revered legal system.”
• Former Meta executive Sarah Wynn-Williams accused the social media giant of developing a censorship tool to monitor viral content in Hong Kong and Taiwan when Facebook attempted to gain access to the Chinese market.

February 2025

• Selina Cheng, chairperson of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, accused her ex-employer, The Wall Street Journal, of breaching the city’s laws protecting employees’ right to join union activities by firing her after she took on the union’s leadership role.
• The Hong Kong Journalists Association postponed its annual fundraising dinner after the Regal Hongkong Hotel axed its venue booking, citing “water leakage causing unstable power supply.”
• The Communications Authority lost a bid to challenge a ruling at the top court, after a lower court ruled that the government-funded broadcaster RTHK had not breached its code with a satirical show about the police.
• HKFP reported several new cases of harassment to the police and launched a new zero-tolerance policy.
• A student union at the Chinese University of Hong Kong cancelled the screening of a Burmese film set in Myanmar’s ongoing civil war, citing a last-minute government warning that hosting the event may break the law.
• A verdict for Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai’s national security trial is expected in October 2025 as the pro-democracy media tycoon concluded his testimony.

January 2025

• A new wave of online harassment that followed a journalism student’s investigation into government “care teams” echoed an “organised attack” last year that saw dozens of reporters targeted, the Hong Kong Journalists Association said.
• Hong Kong’s privacy watchdog said it received two complaints in 2024 about journalists who were harassed, with one case transferred to the police for follow-up.
• Veteran journalist Sum Wan-wah of the Chinese University of Hong Kong spoke in defence of student reporters who were accused by an official of making “sweeping generalisations” in a video documentary about district-level “care teams”.
• Hong Kong’s Ming Pao newspaper defended its journalism after the government described one of its reports on a cybersecurity bill as “biased and misleading.”
• Hong Kong’s housing minister rejected the “alarmist and pessimistic sentiment” in a report by the UK’s The Guardian, which suggested that the city’s proposed subdivided housing regulations had “run into trouble.”
• Hong Kong pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai continued to give testimony as he denied he acted as a “middleman” to help Taiwan re-establish diplomatic ties with the US.

December 2024

• Former Hong Kong journalists Chan Cheuk-sze and Kathy Wong won best documentary short at the 61st Golden Horse Awards in Taiwan for their debut film Colour Sampling Ideology.mov, a 59-minute visual analysis of colour symbolism in politics in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
• More Hong Kong residents than ever perceived the city’s news outlets to be self-censoring and shying away from criticising local and Beijing authorities, the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute found. In total, 65 per cent of the survey respondents perceived news outlets to have practiced self-censorship, up eight per cent from the previous year, and marking a record high.
• An independent media outlet in Macau took down a report about various facilities being shut down before Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s three-day visit to the territory to mark the 25th anniversary of its handover to Beijing. The report was taken down “due to ‘unavoidable’ reasons,” according to All About Macau’s statement.
• Jimmy Lai continued to testify during his national security trial, saying he halted calls for sanctions against the Hong Kong and Beijing governments after the national security law came into effect in 2020, as it would be “suicide” to make such demands.

November 2024

• Independent news outlet InMedia was fined HK$10,000 over not keeping a register of its members and directors at its Wan Chai office.
• Jailed Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai took the stand for the first time in his national security trial, testifying that he had never tried to influence overseas governments’ foreign policy on Hong Kong or China.
• Hong Kong Journalists Association chairperson Selina Cheng sued The Wall Street Journal over her “unlawful dismissal,” after she was fired by the paper in July. Mediation with the US-based newspaper had been “ineffective,” she told reporters, after taking her case to the Labour Department, stating that she had been laid off unlawfully because of her participation in a union.

October 2024

• Hong Kong security chief Chris Tang accused ex-lawmaker Margaret Ng of “glorifying” jailed Stand News editor Chung Pui-kuen in an opinion piece published in Ming Pao. Ng, a barrister and former director of Stand News, said Chung had left a “detailed public record of the extent of press freedom allowed under current law” during his sedition trial.
• Jimmy Lai was refused a jury trial in a libel suit against the Beijing-backed Ta Kung Pao over articles it published in June 2020 claiming that the pro-democracy media tycoon planned to illegally abscond from Hong Kong. Lai was ordered to pay HK$300,000 in legal costs arising from the failed application.
• Hong Kong police served US tech firm Automattic with a notice to take down diaspora media site Flow HK, citing national security grounds.
• Hong Kong’s police crime unit said it had taken over the investigation into reported harassment of journalists, more than a month after the cases were reported to the authorities.
• Ex-Stand News editor Patrick Lam lodged an appeal against his conviction for publishing ”seditious” materials, a month after he was sentenced alongside former chief editor Chung Pui-kuen.

September 2024

• Journalism lecturer Allan Au was marked as “on leave” from his position at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, less than a week after four op-eds he wrote for shuttered independent media outlet Stand News were ruled “seditious” in a landmark trial.
• The Court of Appeal overturned a warning by Hong Kong’s media watchdog that a satirical current affairs programme on RTHK had “insulted” the city’s police force. Judge Jeremy Poon ruled that satirical nature of the comments made in the programme meant that the requirement for accuracy, stipulated in the code of practice, was not applicable.
• The Hong Kong Journalists Association revealed a spate of harassment and intimidation cases in a “systematic and organised attack” against dozens of Hong Kong reporters. Chief Executive John Lee said “anyone” who required help could seek out the city’s law enforcement agencies, but stopped short of criticising the harassment.
• Associated Press photojournalist Louise Delmotte was denied entry to Hong Kong, months after an extension of her work visa was rejected by the city’s immigration authorities. Delmotte had won multiple photojournalism awards in the city, including for her exclusive shots of pro-democracy figure Jimmy Lai in a maximum security prison last August.
• Former chief editor of shuttered Hong Kong media outlet Stand News Chung Pui-kuen was jailed for one year and nine months over publishing “seditious” materials. Stand News’ former acting chief editor Patrick Lam, who was initially handed 14 months in jail, walked free after the judge considered Lam’s poor health and the time he had spent in pre-trial detention. The judges ruled that the two editors had not been conducting genuine journalism, “but participating in the so-called resistance.”

August 2024

• David Neuberger, an overseas non-permanent judge of the Court of Final Appeal, withdrew from his position on an advisory board to an international press freedom NGO, days after he was on a panel that denied media tycoon Jimmy Lai and six other democrats an appeal over a 2019 protest.
• The chief editor of Ming Pao urged columnists to be “prudent” and “law-abiding” when writing for the newspaper, warning that otherwise, “crisis may come”. The memo read: “For Ming Pao to conduct itself and its mission in Hong Kong’s new era, as well as to exercise the role of the fourth estate, is a heavy responsibility and a long path that requires extra caution.”
• The Hong Kong Journalists Association issued its annual press freedom index, which recorded a rating of 25 out of 100, the lowest since the survey was first conducted in 2013. Reporters said they were hesitant to criticise the government and that it had become harder for the media to function as a watchdog and to access information.
• Chinese journalist Haze Fan was refused a visa to work at Bloomberg’s Hong Kong bureau, “without explanation.” Fan was previously detained in China.
• Ex-chief editor of independent Hong Kong media outlet Stand News Chung Pui-kuen and former acting editor-in-chief Patrick Lam were found guilty of sedition, marking the first such conviction of journalists in Hong Kong since the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997. Judge Kwok Wai-kin ruled that Stand News was “a tool to smear and slander central and [Hong Kong] government” during the 2019 protests.

July 2024

• Chair of the Hong Kong Journalists Association Selina Cheng was fired by The Wall Street Journal, weeks after she took the helm at the union. She said the American newspaper had told her that its employees should not be seen as advocating for press freedom “in a place like Hong Kong.”
• The organiser of the 2024 Hong Kong Book Fair ordered exhibitors not to sell certain book titles at the fair, citing complaints. Boundary Bookstore and Bbluesky were ordered to pull several titles, including some by veteran journalist Allan Au and former pro-democracy lawmaker Shiu Ka-chun.
• The Court of Appeal rejected jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai’s application to take his bid to hire a British lawyer to the city’s apex court. The 76-year-old wanted to challenge an appeal court’s ruling in April, when it sided with a decision from the Committee for Safeguarding National ‍Security that barred him from hiring a British lawyer for his ongoing national security trial.

June 2024

• Selina Cheng of The Wall Street Journal was elected to lead the Hong Kong Journalists Association, as Channel C’s Ronson Chan stepped down as chair. Two candidates – Preston Cheung, who worked for non-profit organisation Justice Centre Hong Kong and the BBC’s Danny Vincent – said they wished to drop out of the race for Executive Committee seats.
• The executive editor of The New York Times criticised the “corrosive effect” of Hong Kong’s national security laws on press freedom during an awards ceremony in the city, but said that local news media continued to produce impactful coverage despite facing such challenges.
• Hongkongers’ trust in the news “increased substantially,” rising to 55 per cent of those surveyed for an annual study of news consumption habits, the highest since the city was first examined in 2017,  according to a report released by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.
• Hong Kong police condemned claims from the Hong Kong Journalists Association that the press union’s chair Ronson Chan had received an “unreasonable warning” from an officer while covering the 35th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown.

May 2024

• Indian cartoonist Rachita Taneja and Hong Kong’s Wong Kei-kwan, better known as Zunzi, were awarded the biennial Kofi Annan Courage in Cartooning Award on May 3, World Press Freedom Day. Wong published satirical comic strips in Ming Pao for 24 years before the comic was suspended in May 2023.
• Chief Executive John Lee said the press was free to “ask questions” but not provoke conflicts or make slanderous remarks, while speaking at a media awards ceremony.
• The Wall Street Journal said it would shift its Asia headquarters from Hong Kong to Singapore. The US newspaper’s editor-in-chief, Emma Tucker, said in a letter to staff that the shift would also involve an unspecified number of layoffs.
• Hong Kong again ranked low in an annual press freedom ranking as Reporters Without Borders cited an “unprecedented series of setbacks,” including newsroom closures and journalist arrests under Beijing’s national security law.

April 2024

• Taipei-based Advocacy Officer Aleksandra Bielakowska of Reporters Without Borders was denied entry to Hong Kong after she was detained, searched and questioned for six hours at the airport. RSF said the move marked a “new decline” in the already poor press freedom climate in the territory.
• The Hong Kong Journalists Association was forced to move a fundraising concert online. An auction was supposed to be held at the concert to raise funds for the union.
• The Hong Kong Journalists Association was allowed to mount a legal challenge against the Transport Department’s policy restricting media access to vehicle ownership records.

March 2024

• The Safeguarding National Security Ordinance took effect on March 23, after being passed into law by Hong Kong’s opposition-free legislature four days earlier. Known as Article 23, authorities said it was needed to plug loopholes left by Beijing’s security law, while United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk warned that “such provisions readily lead to self-censorship and chilling of legitimate speech and conduct, in respect of matters of public interest on which open debate is vital.”
• Andy Li, one of the 12 Hong Kong fugitives caught by China’s coastguard in August 2020 while trying to flee to Taiwan, took the stand in media mogul Jimmy Lai’s national security trial. Testifying against the Apple Daily founder, Li said that Lai’s “radical” stance was common knowledge and that he had financed a global advertising campaign.
• Bloomberg admitted an error in reporting that Hong Kong planned to ban some social media under its new security law, as the government condemned the “false report” and denied any such intention.
• The Chinese University of Hong Kong removed copies of the University Community Press from campus, saying the publication was “unauthorised” and could not be displayed without permission. The publication, formerly known as CUHK Student Press, was managed by the student union before the body was forced to shutter in 2021.
• Radio Free Asia closed its Hong Kong office over staff safety concerns after Article 23 was enacted. The US-funded news outlet said that it no longer had full-time staff in Hong Kong and has closed its physical office, citing “concerns about the safety of RFA staff and reporters.”
• Hong Kong authorities condemned the BBC’s reporting on Article 23, saying its report about the remission of sentences for security law convicts was “extremely misleading,” and condemned “fact-twisting” remarks by what it deemed anti-China organisations quoted in the report.

February 2024

• Ex-Apple Daily publisher Chan Pui-man took the stand in media mogul Jimmy Lai’s national security trial, saying Lai told Apple Daily to play up the business sector’s concerns regarding the Beijing-imposed national security law in its coverage. She also said that Apple Daily had launched its English version to rally international support.
• Justice minister Paul Lam said the press should be “cautious” and consider whether they were “abetting” Hong Kong activists they were interviewing. Interviews with overseas Hongkongers who are wanted by the authorities may amount to giving them a platform to express views in breach of national security, he said.
• Ronson Chan, chair of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, said the “vague” legislative proposal for Article 23 had caused journalists working in the city to feel like they were in danger. Citing a survey conducted by the press union, he said more than 75 per cent of journalists believed Article 23 would only have a negative impact on press freedom.

January 2024

• Media mogul Jimmy Lai pleaded not guilty to conspiring to collude with foreign forces and publishing “seditious” materials in his closely-watched national security trial. The pro-democracy figure has been detained since December 2020.
• Hong Kong police slammed US-funded media outlet Radio Free Asia for quoting self-exiled former lawmaker Ted Hui’s “slander” against the police force, urging the news organisation not to give a platform to “criminals who make false statements.”
• Lawmaker Doreen Kong said Hong Kong’s new arrangements for journalists wishing to access the government’s vehicle registry were inconsistent with the city’s constitutional guarantees of press freedom. The revision was made in light of the Court of Final Appeal’s decision to acquit investigative journalist Bao Choy of making false statements to access the city’s vehicle registry for an investigation into a 2019 mob attack.
• The Hong Kong Journalists Association said the new rules governing access to the vehicle registry would hamper reporting, as the Transport Department accused the union of making a “false accusation” against the authorities.
• The Hong Kong Journalists Association rejected “untruthful remarks” from security chief Chris Tang, who said the press group did not represent the Hong Kong media industry.
• Ex-Apple Daily publisher Cheung Kim-hung took the stand in Jimmy Lai’s national security trial to testify against his former employer.

December 2023

• The HKJA raised concerns after Japanese media reported that South China Morning Post (SCMP) reporter Minnie Chan had gone missing after a work trip to China. Responding to an enquiry from HKFP, SCMP said Chan was on personal leave concerning a private matter and also threatened legal action.
• The SCMP withdrew an opinion piece after being unable to verify the writer’s credentials.

November 2023

• The verdict in the trial against two former editors of now-defunct news outlet Stand News was postponed again pending a higher court’s ruling, expected in 2024.
• The HKJA expressed “deep regret” that reporters were not allowed to interview attendees at an international finance summit organised by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority.

October 2023

• A Hong Kong judge called for an investigation after prosecutors claimed that video footage linked to a rioting case during the 2019 Yuen Long mob attacks had been released by an online media outlet ahead of the trial.
• Net satisfaction with press freedom in Hong Kong stood at negative 8 per cent, while 13 per cent of people believed the local news media had given full play to the freedom of speech, according to a PORI survey.
• Google received a request from the Hong Kong Police Force to remove 5 videos featuring “The Hong Konger,“ a documentary about pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai from YouTube, a report read.

September 2023

• The Communications Authority rejected complaints against a now-deleted RTHK documentary that examined the 2019 Yuen Long mob attacks.
• Sebastien Lai, the son of detained media mogul Jimmy Lai, spoke at a UN event on media freedom, as the government slammed the occasion as “political manipulation.”
• Ronson Chan, the head of the HKJA, was found guilty of obstructing a police officer while reporting last September and was sentenced to five days in prison before being granted bail pending appeal.
• The Court of Appeal heard the HKJA and the RTHK Staff Union’s joint appeal against the city’s communications regulator’s decision to issue a warning over RTHK’s satirical programme Headliner.

August 2023

• US photojournalist Matthew Connors, who covered the 2019 protests and unrest, said that he was denied entry to Hong Kong when he tried to visit for tourism purposes.
• Press freedom NGO Reporters Without Borders criticised the Hong Kong authorities after Swiss photojournalist Marc Progin was faced with HK$500,000 in legal costs despite being cleared of a public disorder charge.
• The national security trial of pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai was delayed again to December to ensure that one of the handpicked judges will have finished presiding over another landmark national security case involving 47 democrats.

• The HKJA said it will offer assistance to employees of local newspaper Sky Post, which will soon publish its final print edition.

July 2023

• Government-funded broadcaster RTHK suspended an LGBTQ-related radio programme after 17 years, the host of the programme said on its official Facebook page. 
• The West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts received written closing statements in the trial against journalist Ronson Chan, who stands accused of obstructing a police officer.

• A court ruled that journalists will be allowed to report on matters related to 2019 protest anthem Glory to Hong Kong, should the government’s bid to ban unlawful acts relating to the song be successful.
• Authorities proposed that programmes about national education, national identity, and those which promote a “correct understanding” of the national security law could be exempt from an impartiality clause requiring “even-handedness” when opposing points of view are presented.
• The government watchdog rejected HKFP’s complaint against the Information Services Department over their handling of an unexplained media ban at press event, finding no evidence of maladministration.
• HKJA said Hong Kong’s press freedom index dipped further, largely due to journalists being hesitant to criticise the central government.
• A survey conducted by the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCC) found that almost 70 per cent of journalists in Hong Kong say they have self-censored in their own writing.

• Chief Secretary for Administration Eric Chan claimed there was no conflict between the media’s journalistic work and the Beijing-imposed national security law.
• Japanese journalist Yoshiaki Ogawa, known for his coverage of Hong Kong’s protests, was barred from entering Hong Kong days before the 26th anniversary of its Handover to China.
• China’s representative intervened at the UN in an unsuccessful effort to stop the son of detained media tycoon Jimmy Lai from testifying.

June 2023

• A Hong Kong press group urged the city’s police to provide an explanation after its former chairperson was led away by officers while she was reporting on the 34th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown.
• The Hong Kong government condemned US politicians’ calls for a joint effort with the UK to prioritise the release of pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai by sanctioning Hong Kong officials, prosecutors, and judges involved in national security law detentions.
• Pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai filed an appeal against the High Court’s rejection of his attempt to challenge a national security committee decision which effectively barred a foreign lawyer from representing him.
• Journalist Bao Choy’s conviction for making false statements to access vehicle records was quashed after five judges ruled unanimously in favour of her appeal at the city’s top court. Her sentence was also set aside.
• Chief Executive John Lee said that authorities would review the top court’s judgement that saw journalist Bao Choy’s conviction quashed to “improve” procedures related to accessing vehicle records.
• The District Court heard closing arguments in the trial against two former editors of now-defunct news outlet Stand News, with the verdict to be handed down in October 2023. 
• The Court of Appeal blocked media tycoon Jimmy Lai’s bid to challenge a national security search warrant of his phones, which he said contained protected journalistic materials, at the city’s top court.

• The Hong Kong Journalists’ Association said it was looking to intervene in a legal bid by the government to ban all forms of the protest song Glory to Hong Kong, in the hopes of gaining an exemption for media reporting. A statement said the press group wants to “protect the work of journalists.”
• Citizens’ Radio, a pro-democracy pirate radio station, ceased operating on June 30 after its founder said the station’s bank account had been frozen.
• A prominent Chinese financial journalist who compared the country’s economic problems to the Great Depression was banned from social media.
• Hong Kong may drop plans for a “fake news” law, Chief Executive John Lee suggested, saying the problem can be tackled by other means.

May 2023

• The government watchdog agreed to investigate HKFP’s complaint against the Information Services Department over their handling of a press event, which saw several government-registered outlets barred from attendance without explanation.
• Blocking pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai’s overseas counsel from representing him in his national security trial is “persecution not prosecution,” his lawyer said in an application to halt the trial. 
• Chief Executive John Lee told a reporter that the pro-democracy demonstrations and unrest of 2019 should be referred to as the “black violence,” not “protests.”
• Hong Kong ranked 140th among the 180 regions at the Reporters Without Borders press freedom ranking released on World Press Freedom Day.

• Hong Kong journalist Bao Choy appealed to the city’s top court against her conviction linked to checking vehicle registration records for a documentary about the Yuen Long attacks in 2019.
• Hong Kong transport news site Transit Jam ceased operations, its owner announced, making it the latest outlet to disappear in the wake of the security law. The closure came days after its founder was targeted in the state-run press.
• After 40 years, Hong Kong’s most prominent political cartoonist Zunzi had his comic strip suspended after a satirical post was criticised by government bodies.
• Hong Kong’s security minister hit back at the Hong Kong Journalists’ Association after it said the suspension of a long-standing political cartoon strip following repeated government complaints showed that the city “could not tolerate critical voices.”
• Books by satirical cartoonist Zunzi disappeared from Hong Kong public library listings, after his comic strip was axed by newspaper Ming Pao on Wednesday following criticism from an official.
• The defence questioned whether an exchange between the head of Hong Kong’s largest journalists’ group, Ronson Chan, and a plainclothes police officer could have happened as described, as the trial against Chan began.
• Over 100 international media leaders around the world expressed support for detained Hong Kong pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong in a joint statement on Tuesday organised by Reporters Without Borders.
• The head of Hong Kong’s largest journalists’ group said he feared a privacy breach when he was asked to show his identity card by a plainclothes officer, a court heard.
• Hong Kong’s Court of First Instance rejected attempts by pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai to challenge a decision made by Hong Kong’s national security committee relating to the admission of an overseas lawyer for his trial.
• A lifestyle editor who was not from a traditional news correspondent background was elected as president of the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents’ Club, after he ran unopposed in the leadership race.
• Hong Kong’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club raised concerns after the government inexplicably barred several media outlets from a National Security Education Day event on April 15. It was their first press freedom statement of 2013.
• Hong Kong pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai’s bid to halt the national security trial against him was rejected by the city’s Court of First Instance.

• Hong Kong’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club devised a set of guidelines for releasing statements on press freedom issues, which includes seeking legal advice and contacting government departments ahead of publishing.
• Hong Kong pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai was expected to face an 83-day national security trial, a court heard.

April 2023

• Hong Kong’s security chief criticised Ming Pao over a “misleading” comic strip about the government’s plan to spend HK$5.2 billion on a new communications system. 
• Chung Pui-kuen, former top Stand News editor, completed his testimony in his sedition trial as the case was adjourned to June for closing arguments. 
• Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee refused to comment on reports received by the city’s largest press group that reporters had been followed by unknown men.
• Hong Kong journalists who have emigrated faced a number of difficulties when trying to start their careers in media overseas, according to a report published by an overseas journalists’ body.
• Social media platform Twitter slapped Hong Kong’s government-backed broadcaster RTHK with a “state-affiliated media” label.
• RTHK said it would “follow up” with Twitter, after the social media platform added a “state-affiliated media” label to the news outlet’s official account.
• Hong Kong pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai filed a legal bid against the government’s decision to reject any further work visa applications from an overseas counsel he had hired for his national security case.
• Hong Kong’s pensions fund authority demanded that American newspaper The Wall Street Journal retract “misinformation” in an op-ed about holders of British National Overseas passports’ access to their pensions.
• The Hong Kong government barred several government-registered media outlets from covering a National Security Education Day event, ignoring emails and evading questions by phone when challenged as to why.

• The son and overseas lawyers of Jimmy Lai urged the United Nations to condemn the prosecution on “trumped-up” charges of the pro-democracy media tycoon, sparking criticism of them from the Hong Kong government.
• “The media landscape in Hong Kong has been as vibrant as ever” following the implementation of the national security law, the government said in a criticism of a UK all-party parliamentary group report. 

March 2023

• Coconuts wound down its Hong Kong news site, citing commercial and journalistic challenges. The announcement came days after a new general manager took over the publishing group.
• The founder of an independent Hong Kong news publication and two others pleaded guilty to selling a “seditious” book at a Lunar New Year fair.
• HKJA called on the police to “maintain professionalism” while on duty, after a journalist was reportedly pushed by an officer while filming outside a courthouse.
• HKJA condemned the harassment and surveillance of local journalists, after an HKFP court reporter was followed from her home to her workplace for over an hour by two men with earpieces.

• HKJA said it received several recent reports of journalists being tailed, as police slammed the group over “unverified speculations” that those following journalists were suspected of being members of law enforcement.
• Two ex-Stand News editors charged under the colonial-era sedition law continued to stand trial.

February 2023

• Monitoring the authorities is the duty of the media, pro-establishment newspaper Oriental Daily said in an editorial after it was criticised by the police for a video commentary on the force’s performance.
• Hong Kong journalist Bao Choy vowed to “monitor the rich and powerful” and “seek truth” with her newly launched media outlet The Collective HK.
• Pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai asked the High Court to prevent Beijing’s recent interpretation of the national security law from affecting an earlier ruling that allowed him to be represented by a UK lawyer at his upcoming trial.
• Chinese activists – including dissident artist Badiucao – were approached by social media users falsely claiming to be journalists from Reuters, the news agency reported on Tuesday.
• The trial against two former Stand News top editors charged under the colonial-era sedition law continued as the prosecution carried on the cross-examination of Chung Pui-kuen, ex-editor-in-chief. 
• The Hong Kong government submitted a proposal to introduce legislative amendments which would require local courts to obtain a certificate from the city’s leader before considering whether to allow foreign counsel to act in national security cases.

January 2023

• Defunct independent Hong Kong news outlet Citizen News removed all of the content from its website and social media platforms, as the online publication marked a year since it ceased operations.
• Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao was criticised by one of the city’s top officials over a comic strip about Beijing’s recent interpretation of the national security law.
• Hong Kong broadcaster TVB dropped all BBC channels from its streaming service.
• Britain will stand up to “Chinese aggression” and defend Hong Kong’s freedoms, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak vowed after his government intervened in the case of jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai.
• A committee on safeguarding national security in Hong Kong urged the city’s government to change the law as quickly as possible so it can ban a British lawyer from representing former pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai at his security trial.
• Hong Kong’s Immigration Department barred freelance photographer Michiko Kiseki from the city last month.
• The local legal team representing jailed Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai in his high-profile national security trial said it was not “professionally associated” with an international group of lawyers who reportedly met with a UK minister over Lai’s case.
• Hong Kong’s Chief Executive John Lee said there were people using journalism as a cover to pursue political aims, personal benefit, or “launder money” in the city. 

• Hong Kong’s top court allowed journalist Bao Choy to appeal her conviction over accessing car licence information for an investigative documentary about a mob attack in Yuen Long in July 2019.
• The government watchdog rejected a complaint filed by HKFP related to the authorities’ refusal to disclose their media invite list for Chief Executive John Lee’s inauguration last July 1.
• Chen Zhiming, chief editor of Hong Kong magazine Exclusive Character, was reportedly missing in mainland China for over four months.
• A Hong Kong reporter who was allegedly shot at with a police projectile during a protest in 2019 expressed disappointment that his complaint was rejected.
• The sedition trial against two ex-chief editors of defunct media outlet Stand News continued, as the court heard testimony from one of the defendants, former editor-in-chief Chung Pui-kuen.

December 2022

• The national security trial of pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai was adjourned on its scheduled starting date until December 13 as Hong Kong waits for Beijing to “clarify” the law as to whether overseas lawyers are allowed to appear in such cases.
• Defendants charged under the national security law could be sent to mainland China for trial if they cannot find a lawyer in Hong Kong, the city’s top delegate to Beijing’s advisory body said.
• US-based NGO Human Rights Watch announced it would co-host the Human Rights Press Awards after Hong Kong’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCC) cancelled the event earlier this year.
• Jimmy Lai, the founder of defunct pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily, was sentenced to five years and nine months in jail after being convicted of fraud.
• The jailing of pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai over fraud charges “has nothing to do with freedom of the press or freedom of speech,” the Hong Kong government said, following criticism from the US.
• Chung Pui-kuen, a former top editor of Hong Kong news outlet Stand News facing sedition charges, was granted bail after spending almost a year in custody pending trial.
• The national security trial against Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai was adjourned until September 25, 2023.
• Proceedings against former editors of independent outlet Stand News were “unfair” and “not transparent,” the defence argued, as the court sought to rule on whether the discovery of previously undisclosed evidence was grounds to terminate the trial.
• An additional six articles published by the shuttered independent media outlet Stand News were flagged by the prosecution for potentially violating Hong Kong’s colonial-era sedition law.
• A proposal asking Beijing to “clarify” whether overseas counsellors are allowed to take part in national security court cases in Hong Kong was presented to Beijing’s top decision making body.
• China’s top law-making body gave Hong Kong leader John Lee the power to bar foreign lawyers from national security trials, removing the decision from the city’s courts.

November 2022

• The Trust Project, an international consortium which promotes greater accountability and transparency in the news industry, froze its Hong Kong operations, HKFP reported.
• Hong Kong’s Department of Justice appealed against a court’s decision to let a UK barrister represent media tycoon Jimmy Lai in his upcoming high-profile national security trial.
• Hong Kong’s Security Bureau “expressed deep regret” over “a misleading and fact-twisting commentary” published by Ming Pao on the government’s decision to ban cannabidiol, commonly known as CBD, from February next year.
• Hong Kong journalist Bao Choy lost an appeal against her conviction over assessing public data for a documentary about a mob attack in July 2019.

• The Hong Kong Journalists Association said it was “disappointed and worried” by the court’s decision to reject an appeal filed by journalist Bao Choy, convicted over accessing public data for a documentary about a mob attack in July 2019.
• Hong Kong’s Department of Justice lost an appeal against the High Court’s decision to let a UK barrister represent media tycoon Jimmy Lai in his upcoming high-profile national security trial.
• A Hong Kong court’s decision to allow a senior British lawyer to represent jailed pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai sparked a chorus of condemnation from powerful Beijing loyalist voices.
• Hong Kong’s taxpayer-funded broadcaster RTHK should “cooperate seamlessly” with other government departments, including the police, said its chief Eddie Cheung in an interview with the city’s security minister.
• A Hong Kong citizen journalist who waved the British colonial-era flag while the Chinese national anthem was being played was jailed for three months for insulting the anthem, following the first conviction under a new law.
• Hong Kong’s justice minister refused to remark on comments made by former chief executive Leung Chun-ying, who called a ruling from the city’s appeal court allowing a UK lawyer to represent media tycoon Jimmy Lai in an upcoming national security trial “absurd.”
• Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai was set to apply to halt his high-profile national security trial, which was scheduled to begin in just over two weeks’ time, Lai’s legal representative said.
• Hong Kong’s Department of Justice hoped to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal against allowing a UK barrister to represent media tycoon Jimmy Lai in his high-profile national security trial, scheduled to start in just two weeks’ time.
• Hong Kong journalist Bao Choy furthered her chance of appealing her conviction over accessing car licence information for an investigative documentary about a mob attack in Yuen Long in July 2019.
• Hong Kong’s Court of Appeal refused to grant the secretary for justice a final chance to appeal against a court decision to allow a UK barrister to represent media mogul Jimmy Lai in his high-profile national security trial scheduled to start on December 1.
• Six former staff members of Hong Kong pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily and its parent company, Next Digital, pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to commit collusion charge in a landmark national security case.
• Hong Kong’s Department of Justice filed an application to the city’s top court to appeal against a decision to allow a UK barrister to represent media tycoon Jimmy Lai in a high-profile national security trial.

• State-controlled pro-Beijing newspapers in Hong Kong fiercely criticised the decision to let a senior British barrister represent Jimmy Lai in his high-profile national security trial, quoting one pro-China figure as saying the hearing should be shifted to the mainland if necessary.
• Pro-democracy tycoon Jimmy Lai had no financial motive in breaching the terms of the lease for his Apple Daily newspaper headquarters by operating a consultancy from the same building, a court which convicted him of fraud was told.
• Hong Kong’s top court adjourned its decision on whether to allow the Department of Justice to appeal against an earlier ruling that let media tycoon Jimmy Lai hire a UK lawyer for his national security trial.
• Patrick Lam, a former top editor of defunct Hong Kong outlet Stand News, was granted bail after his lawyer called on the court to terminate the Stand News sedition trial over improper handling of evidence.
• Hong Kong’s top court will not allow the Department of Justice to appeal against an earlier court decision admitting a UK barrister to represent media tycoon Jimmy Lai in a high-profile national security trial.
• Beijing will be invited to determine whether overseas counsels are allowed to take part in national security trials in Hong Kong, Chief Executive John Lee said.
• Hong Kong’s secretary for justice will seek to adjourn a national security trial involving pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai – two days before it was slated to begin – while awaiting Beijing’s proposed interpretation of the city’s national security law.
• Beijing’s power to interpret the national security law “can be used sparingly,” the head of the Hong Kong Bar Association said.
• The lease of the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents’ Club was renewed for three years, with a newly added “standard” clause regarding national security. 

October 2022

• Hong Kong police expressed “strong concerns” over a satirical cartoon published in Ming Pao that contained what they called “misleading content,” according to local media reports.
• An international journalists’ group urged the global community to continue its condemnation of the “media offensive” conducted by the Hong Kong government in a report about the city’s press freedom published earlier.

• Hong Kong police can search journalistic materials stored on phones belonging to media tycoon Jimmy Lai, seized under a national security warrant, the High Court ruled.
• Hong Kong’s High Court allowed media tycoon Jimmy Lai to hire a barrister from the UK to handle his high-profile national security trial, saying that it was “clearly in the public interest.”
• Jimmy Lai, the founder of defunct Hong Kong pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily, was convicted of fraud after being found to have violated the terms of the lease for the newspaper’s headquarters.
• Two reporters quit the South China Morning Post last year after a senior editor axed their three-month investigation into human rights abuses in China’s Xinjiang region, according to an editor who resigned shortly after.
• The South China Morning Post sent a warning to a former editor who resigned along with two reporters after their three-part series on rights abuses in Xinjiang was axed by management last year.
• Hong Kong authorities hit back at the US following its statement on pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai’s fraud case, calling the remarks made “purely politically oriented” and far from the truth.

September 2022

• Ronson Chan, the chairperson of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, was arrested while reporting on a home owners’ committee meeting for online outlet Channel C.
• China lashed out at “slander” by Hong Kong’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club after the club expressed concern over the arrest of the head of the city’s largest journalist group.

• Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Andy Li and paralegal Chan Tsz-wah, who pleaded guilty more than a year ago to conspiring with media mogul Jimmy Lai, were set to be sentenced after the Apple Daily founder stands trial in December under the Beijing-enacted national security law.
• The Hong Kong police ruled that a complaint filed by a journalist who was allegedly hit by a non-lethal projectile during the 2019 protests was “unsubstantiated.”
• Ronson Chan, the chairperson of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, was officially charged with obstructing police officers while reporting.
• Chief Executive John Lee told “patriotic” journalists to “deliver Hong Kong’s latest developments and correct message” to the world when he attended a media sector celebration ahead of China’s upcoming National Day.
• Ronson Chan, the chairperson of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, was granted bail after pleading not guilty to obstructing police officers and an alternative charge of obstructing another person lawfully engaged in a public duty.
• Self-proclaimed non-pro-establishment party Path of Democracy appealed to the government to enact a fake news law as part of a broad list of suggestions for Chief Executive John Lee ahead of his policy address.
• Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai filed an appeal against the court’s decision to uphold a national security search warrant on his phones, which he says contain protected journalistic materials.
• Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai’s request to hire a lawyer from the UK was opposed by the justice minister and a barristers’ group.

August 2022

• Reporting restrictions on proceedings regarding the transfer of criminal cases to the High Court must be lifted if the defendant makes such a request, a Hong Kong court ruled in a landmark judgement.

• Hong Kong’s government watchdog said they will launch a “full investigation” into the Information Services Department’s refusal to disclose the list of media outlets invited to cover July 1 Handover celebrations following a complaint made by HKFP.
• Hong Kong’s detained pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai filed an application for judicial review to try to stop police searching his phones, which he says contain protected journalistic material.
• A group of pro-Beijing Hongkongers urged authorities to launch a national security investigation into US-funded media outlet Radio Free Asia, accusing it of spreading one-sided and “poisonous” information to “imperceptibly influence” the public.
• The national security trial for Jimmy Lai, the founder of pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, will proceed without a jury, local media reported.
• Media tycoon Jimmy Lai was set to plead not guilty and stand trial in a national security case, as Hong Kong’s security chief granted three companies linked to the defunct pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily access to their frozen funds to hire legal representatives.
• Hong Kong courts should not blur the line between criminal and civil cases, the District Court heard as the prosecution and defence presented their closing statements during the fraud trial against media tycoon Jimmy Lai.
• Public trust in the credibility of Hong Kong’s media fell to its lowest level in two decades, according to a survey by the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
• Hong Kong’s High Court heard journalist Bao Choy’s appeal against her conviction over accessing public vehicle registration records when she researched and produced an investigative documentary about the Yuen Long mob attack in 2019.
• Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai lost his legal bid to block a national security search warrant for his phones, which he says contain protected journalistic materials.

July 2022

• Disclosing the media invite list for the July 1 leadership inauguration ‘would harm Hong Kong’s security,’ the government claimed.
• Hong Kong democracy has taken a “quantum leap forward,” officials told a United Nations rights committee, during a grilling over the national security law, declining press freedom and other developments in the wake of the 2019 protests.
• Hong Kong’s leader John Lee said journalists are “in the same boat” as him and that he hoped the news sector would join him in promoting the success of One Country, Two Systems to the world.

• Veteran Hong Kong journalist Kevin Lau’s opinion column in Ming Pao was halted. Lau told HKFP that he was retiring.
• A United Nations rights monitor urged Hong Kong to repeal its national security law, citing the “overly broad interpretation” of its provisions and the subsequent violation of free expression in the city.

June 2022

• Hong Kong investigative news wire Factwire announced it was disbanding with immediate effect.
• Hong Kong effectively barred several independent newspapers, international media outlets and news wires from attending the inauguration of incoming leader John Lee, as well as from covering other July 1 events celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Handover.
• The largest press group in Hong Kong expressed “utmost regret” after journalists from at least seven local and international media organisations were denied access to cover events celebrating the 25th anniversary of the city’s return to Chinese rule.
• Photographer Steven Knipp withdrew a photo donated to Hong Kong’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club, saying the club had failed to stand up for press freedom.
• Chief Executive Carrie Lam said during her final press briefing that the platform had allowed her to address public concerns and media enquiries in a timely manner.
• Fewer Hongkongers expressed trust in public broadcaster RTHK, a study by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism found.
• A court decided that the sedition trial against defunct independent outlet Stand News would start on October 31 and scheduled it to last 20 days.
• The Hong Kong Journalists Association held its annual general meeting, in which members approved changes to the group’s constitution to make dissolution easier.
• Hong Kong’s last British governor, Chris Patten, accused Beijing of ‘vengefully’ targeting the city’s freedoms.

May 2022

• Reporters Without Borders said Hong Kong authorities wielded a draconian new security law to silence critical news outlets and jail journalists in its latest report, as the city plummeted down an international press freedom chart.
• Hong Kong’s sole leadership candidate, John Lee, compared press freedom to identity cards, saying that “Hong Kong already has press freedom.”

• Arizona State University’s journalism school will host the Human Rights Press Awards from next year, after Hong Kong’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club axed the event, citing legal “red lines.”
• The president of Hong Kong’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club said that the club still has a “role to play” following its decision to cancel this year’s Human Right Press Awards, citing legal risks.
• Hong Kong’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club overwhelmingly polled in favour of a motion relating to press freedom. More than half of the board members abstained from the vote.
• The ex-acting chief editor of the now-defunct Stand News told a Hong Kong court that he intended to plead not guilty to sedition charges, as the case was adjourned until late June.
• Ronson Chan, chairperson of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, said he would leave the city for six months to join the Reuters Institute’s fellowship programme at Oxford University starting in early October.
• Hong Kong national security police demanded that Passion Times, an online news outlet which had ties with a defunct opposition group, remove “sensitive” content.
• The “sensitive” content, which Passion Times was ordered to delete on national security grounds, was pictures of a suggested new “national flag” for Hong Kong, according to local media.
• A Hong Kong citizen journalist was sentenced to one month in jail for behaving in a disorderly manner in a public place on National Security Education Day in 2021.

April 2022

• A poll by the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute found that Hongkongers’ satisfaction with press freedom and media outlets in the city dropped to a record low.
• Hong Kong veteran journalist Allan Au was arrested by national security police for allegedly conspiring to publish seditious materials, and was released on bail after spending over 17 hours in police custody.
• The Stand News sedition case was transferred to the District Court, as the outlet’s parent company remained unrepresented in court.
• Hong Kong’s sole chief executive candidate, John Lee, said that press freedom existed in the city, so there was no need to ask him to “defend” it.
• Hong Kong’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club cancelled this year’s Human Rights Press Awards, citing “significant areas of uncertainty” under the law.

• The Foreign Correspondents’ Club’s decision to scrap the Human Rights Press Awards was related to local outlet Stand News winning a number of titles, HKFP was told. 
• Pro-democracy cartoonist Ah To has announced his departure from Hong Kong, saying he would face “great mental stress” if he were to continue to produce political cartoons in the city.
• Hong Kong journalists collectively won the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan’s Freedom of the Press Asia award.
• HKFP was told that the Hong Kong Journalists Association postponed its annual Kam Yiu-yu Press Freedom Award, although the decision to do so was made earlier in the year.
• Keith Richburg, the president of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club, apologised to the judges of the annual Human Rights Press Awards about the cancellation of the event.

March 2022

• NowTV apologised after a reporter asked authorities how mainland Chinese medics in the city to help fight the fifth wave of Covid-19 patients would be held accountable in the event of a medical mishap.

February 2022

• Hong Kong’s Consumer Council announced it would host the Consumer Rights Reporting Awards independently for the first time since the event launched in 2001, ditching two press groups it had partnered with for more than 20 years.

• A statement signed by 21 Western nations condemned a press freedom crackdown in Hong Kong and the arrests of journalists at the defunct independent media outlet Stand News.
• US-funded news outlet Radio Free Asia announced the suspension of some Cantonese programmes and commentaries, citing concerns about press freedom in Hong Kong and the “red lines” of the national security law.
• An International Federation of Journalists report found that Hong Kong was turning into a “city of fear” where “open discussion is stifled” and the national security law “effectively acts as a tripwire for all journalists.”
• Stand News’ sedition case was adjourned to April. 

January 2022

• Independent Hong Kong media outlet Citizen News announced that they decided to halt operations. They said the decision was to ensure staff safety and was prompted by the authorities’ crackdown on fellow independent newsroom Stand News.
• Chief Executive Carrie Lam said the closures of Stand News and Citizen News in under a week were unrelated to the national security law and press freedom.

• The Registry of Trade Unions launched a probe into the Hong Kong Journalists Association,  asking it to provide answers on how certain events it held were relevant to its objectives.
• Members of Jumbo, a student publication at Hong Kong Baptist University, collectively resigned, citing interference from the university after receiving complaints.

December 2021

• Hong Kong public broadcaster RTHK “paused” the social media pages of a dozen programmes, including the axed political satire show Headliner and the popular Hong Kong Connection, which was still in production.
• Hong Kong pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai and the staff of Apple Daily won the Golden Pen of Freedom award.
• Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Erick Tsang threatened the Wall Street Journal over an editorial it published about the city’s first “patriots-only” legislative race. 
• Reporters Without Borders said press freedom in Hong Kong was in “free fall” in its latest report on China.
• Hong Kong’s High Court ordered that Next Digital Limited – the parent company of the now-defunct Apple Daily – must be wound up.
• RTHK broadcasters outside of the news department were ordered not to discuss the University of Hong Kong’s removal of a Tiananmen Massacre statue.

• Over 200 national security police officers were deployed to raid the offices of non-profit online news outlet Stand News, while seven people linked to the outlet were arrested.
• Hong Kong independent media outlet Stand News announced its decision to shut down, following a newsroom raid and seven arrests. Its website and social media pages were deleted.
• Two former chief editors of digital media outlet Stand News were denied bail by a court after they were accused of publishing seditious materials.
• Justice Secretary Teresa Cheng said that criticisms from foreign politicians and organisations over the arrest of figures connected to Stand News were “baseless” and “in blatant violation of international law.”

November 2021

• The Consumer Council cancelled an annual consumer reporting awards contest co-organised with the Hong Kong Journalists Association.
• An anonymous survey conducted by the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents’ Club found that close to half of the respondents considered leaving Hong Kong.
• The Chinese Foreign Ministry expressed “strong disapproval” of the member survey conducted by the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents’ Club. 
• Digital media outlet DB Channel announced plans to shut down operations in Hong Kong after the channel’s co-founder Frankie Fung was denied bail pending trial under the national security law.
• Hong Kong police closed an investigation into a baseball bat attack on an Epoch Times reporter, with no one facing charges.
• Hong Kong digital news outlet Stand News was nominated for the Reporters Without Borders 2021 Press Freedom Prize for Independence.
• The Economist said that the Hong Kong authorities refused to renew a work visa for their correspondent Sue-Lin Wong, without providing an explanation.

• Chief Executive Carrie Lam refused to explain why a journalist from The Economist was denied a work visa renewal, saying any government has discretion on the issuing of visas. 
• The Hong Kong government is conducting a legal study on the problem of “fake news,” Chief Secretary John Lee said.
• Hong Kong public broadcaster RTHK removed from its website a news report about Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai, who accused a former top Chinese official of sexual assault.
• Chief Executive Carrie Lam vowed to “proactively plug loopholes” in the city’s internet regulation to ensure “fake news” circulating online does not “harm society.”
• Hong Kong’s High Court partially upheld a decision made by the Communication Authority against public broadcaster RTHK, which stated that it presented factual inaccuracies and denigrated the police force in a now-axed satirical show.

October 2021

• Two Hong Kong news organisations were barred from attending a reception organised by the local media sector in celebration of the upcoming Chinese National Day.
• Hong Kong public broadcaster RTHK refused to say why it deleted a story from its website about proposals for a new law criminalising insults against public officers.
• The Hong Kong Journalists Association apologised for the alleged theft of its members’ personal information, after a Beijing-backed newspaper published shredded documents taken from the office trash.
• Police rejected 26 out of 27 complaints submitted by the Hong Kong Journalists Association as “not pursuable.”
• The Independent Police Complaints Council accused the Hong Kong Journalists Association of airing misinformation over misconduct investigations.

• Two registries announced new rules tightening public access to government records to step up the protection of personal data privacy.
• Hong Kong democrat Alan Leong was dropped by Ming Pao as a writer for the newspaper’s legal column, ending an 18-year term.

September 2021

• All remaining directors of Next Digital, the parent company of Apple Daily, resigned and called for the company’s liquidation, citing a “climate of fear” created by the national security law.
• Hong Kong public broadcaster RTHK said it is committed to promoting public debate following reports that it axed another current affairs programme, the 41-year-old City Forum.
• The Hong Kong Journalists Association hit back at criticism from the Secretary for Security, who accused it of infiltrating campuses to “rope in” student journalists as members.
• The head of the Hong Kong Journalists Association said that the security chief’s suggestion that the group could make public its members’ information may be in violation of the Privacy Ordinance.

• A Hong Kong cartoonist apologised to police for a satirical comic strip which linked the Junior Police Call organisation to a controversy over the Hong Kong Journalists Association.
• Hong Kong public broadcaster RTHK refused to comment on the whereabouts of its English-language radio presenter Hugh Chiverton after he disappeared from the airwaves without explanation.
• Hong Kong’s Financial Secretary asked a court to wind up Next Digital Limited, the parent company of Apple Daily, in the “public interest.” 
• Public broadcaster RTHK told its staff to avoid contact with foreign governments or political organisations under new editorial guidelines, as it vowed to prevent acts that endanger national security.

August 2021

• Digital Hong Kong news outlet Initium became the first media organisation to quit the city following the implementation of the national security law, as the outlet moved to Singapore.
• HKFP columnist and ex-RTHK broadcaster Steve Vines left Hong Kong for the UK, citing the security law crackdown.
• Hong Kong public broadcaster RTHK deleted all of its English-language Twitter archive and prevented readers from “replying” to its tweets, citing resource constraints.
• Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced that public broadcaster RTHK will partner with China Media Group – the holding group for CCTV and China National Radio –  to air more programmes.
• Beijing-controlled Wen Wei Po called for the Hong Kong Journalists Association to be regulated.

July 2021

• Hong Kong public broadcaster RTHK axed the current affairs programme The Pulse, hosted by veteran journalist Steve Vines.

• NGO Reporters Without Borders released a report accusing Chief Executive Carrie Lam of trampling on the city’s press freedom, and listed her as a “predator.”
• Hong Kong Journalists Association published its annual report saying that the city’s press freedom was “in tatters.”
• Local media reported that a senior executive at Now News resigned citing “turbulent times” for Hong Kong’s media.
• Staff at public broadcaster RTHK were ordered to refer to Taiwan as part of China.
• A sexual assault complaint against a Hong Kong police officer who allegedly touched the breast of a female journalist was dropped after the force failed to identify the officer. 
• Three former Apple Daily journalists had their bail revoked by national security police. 
• Hong Kong Secretary for Home Affairs Caspar Tsui told lawmakers that the government was mulling plans to implement a “fake news” law.
• Four former Apple Daily journalists charged under the national security law were denied bail in court. 
• Hong Kong national security police confiscated the travel documents of a reporter who filmed a knife attack against an officer. 
• Two former editors of pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily charged under the national security law withdrew their bail review applications.

• The Hong Kong government appointed a special fraud investigator to scrutinise pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily’s parent company, Next Digital. 

June 2021

• RTHK axed another current affairs programme, “Letter to Hong Kong”.
• It is announced that pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai is to stand trial on national security charges in Hong Kong’s High Court, where the maximum penalty is life imprisonment.
• A Hong Kong court ruled that a local female reporter was guilty of resisting a police officer in the execution of their duties while covering a protest in Mong Kok in May 2020.
• Hong Kong’s Department of Justice dropped a charge of improperly accessing public records against a reporter for Beijing-owned newspaper Ta Kung Pao.
• Hundreds of Hong Kong police officers raided the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily and arrested five senior executives on suspicion of violating the national security law.
• Hong Kong’s security chief John Lee accused pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily of using journalism as a tool to endanger national security.
• Two senior executives from the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily were charged under the national security law for allegedly conspiring to collude with foreign powers.

• Hong Kong public broadcaster RTHK fired outspoken pro-democracy radio host Tsang Chi-ho.
• Next Digital CEO Cheung Kim-hung and Apple Daily Editor-in-Chief Ryan Law, facing national security charges, were denied bail at the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts.
• Pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper warned it was unable to pay staff and was at imminent risk of closure after the government froze company assets, citing the national security law.
• Apple Daily’s finance section, its English edition, Twitter account and video department ceased operations following an exodus of staff.
• Police arrested an Apple Daily editorial writer under the national security law for allegedly conspiring to collude with foreign forces.
• Hong Kong pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily decided to halt all operations in the city and published its last edition of the newspaper on June 24.
• Two Apple Daily executives arrested on suspicion of endangering national security sought a court order for Hong Kong police to return journalistic and privileged legal material seized during their arrest and in a raid on the newspaper.
• Hong Kong national security police arrested a former editorial writer for Apple Daily at the airport as he was about to fly to Britain.
• Independent digital outlet Stand News announced it will remove opinion articles and columns it published before May and stop accepting donations in order to reduce risks under the national security law.
• Human Rights Watch released a report saying that basic rights and freedoms in Hong Kong were being “erased” under the security law.
• Hong Kong public broadcaster RTHK sacked veteran journalist Allan Au from hosting a phone-in radio programme.
• Veteran Hong Kong journalist and commentator Steve Vines announced his departure from public broadcaster RTHK.

May 2021

• RTHK began removing shows from its YouTube channel and Facebook page a year after they air. It deleted its archive of content over a year old.

• The Hong Kong Press Freedom Index hit a record low, with close to 99 per cent of respondents saying the Beijing-enacted national security law harmed the city’s free press.
• RTHK refused to extend an employment contract for journalist Nabela Qoser following an extended probation period. Qoser was known for her vigorous questioning of officials.
• Hong Kong journalist Bao Choy filed an appeal against a magistrate’s decision to convict her after she accessed public records to investigate police behaviour during the “7.21” mob attack at Yuen Long MTR station in 2019.
• An executive producer who led Hong Kong’s longest-running TV documentary programme, Hong Kong Connection, resigned from RTHK.
• Epoch Times reporter Leung Zhen was attacked by a man wielding a baseball bat from a passing vehicle.
• Assets belonging to pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai were frozen by the Hong Kong authorities.
• Trading in shares of Next Digital, the parent company of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, was suspended at the company’s request.
• Hong Kong’s Security Secretary John Lee denied that the freezing of the assets of pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai represented a crackdown on press freedom.
• RTHK denied replacing an episode of Hong Kong Connection about the proposed shake-up of the city’s electoral system following local media reports that it had been axed.
• RTHK axed a story about the annual Tiananmen Massacre anniversary long-distance run from its news show “LegCo review”.

• WhatsApp chats which democrat Claudia Mo had sent to media organisations like the BBC and the New York Times outlining her fears for freedom of speech in the city were deemed by a High Court judge to be sufficient grounds to deny her bail.

April 2021

• RTHK said that the Hong Kong government has the power to surcharge its employees for the cost of axed programmes.
• Amnesty International Hong Kong said the state of human rights and freedoms in Hong Kong had deteriorated under the national security law in 2020.
• The public perception of the independence and credibility of Hong Kong’s news media dropped to a record low, according to an opinion poll.
• Chief Executive Carrie Lam said the Hong Kong government is the “biggest victim of fake news,” after pledging to submit a bill to tackle “doxxing” within the current legislative term.
• RTHK dropped veteran journalist Steve Vines as a regular current affairs commentator on its Morning Brew programme after more than ten years.
• The Epoch Times’s printing presses were ransacked by a gang of men wielding sledgehammers.
• Hong Kong journalist Yvonne Tong, who famously challenged a WHO official, resigned from RTHK.
• Reporters Without Borders East Asia warned that silence from the Hong Kong authorities over an attack on the Epoch Times is fostering a “climate of suspicion” against journalists and “encouraging” violent attacks on the media.
• Police chief Chris Tang said that media outlets that endanger the security of Hong Kong by publishing “fake news” will be investigated.
• State-owned newspaper Ta Kung Pao, in a full-page cover story, accused Apple Daily and other pro-democracy “yellow media” of “constantly creating fake news.”
• Reporters without Borders warned that the national security law posed a “grave threat” to the city’s journalists as Hong Kong remained 80th out of 180 regions in the 2021 world press freedom index.

• RTHK rejected a media award for a TV documentary about the police handling of the Yuen Long mob attack in 2019.
• The Hong Kong government criticised a Reporters Without Borders report which warned that the national security law poses a “grave threat” to journalists in the city.
• Hong Kong documentary producer Bao Choy was found guilty and fined HK$6,000 for knowingly making false statements to obtain vehicle ownership records for the RTHK programme on the Yuen Long mob attacks of 2019.
• Police confirmed that a journalist from Ta Kung Pao was arrested in February for making false statements to obtain public vehicle records.
• The Foreign Correspondents’ Club urged Hong Kong’s police chief to clarify his recent comments about “foreign forces” attempting to stir hatred and conflict in the city using disinformation.
• Beijing accused the FCC of being an external force interfering with China’s internal affairs and undermining the city’s rule of law.
• A fifth senior staffer resigned from RTHK.
• RTHK signed up Chief Executive Carrie Lam to host her own daily show on Beijing’s electoral overhaul for the city.
• RTHK axed another episode of a TV documentary series about online media financed by public donations after a month-long vetting process.

March 2021

• A top Beijing official said the principle of “patriots governing Hong Kong” extends to the judiciary, the education sector and the media, in addition to public officials.
• A leading civil servant with no broadcasting experience took over as head of RTHK, where three senior employees quit in the space of two weeks.
• Hong Kong’s national security police arrested a former top executive of Next Digital, the publisher of Apple Daily, over alleged fraud.
• RTHK made a last-minute decision to cancel a programme featuring a panel discussion of Beijing’s plans for a drastic election overhaul.

• The cinema screening of a documentary about a violent campus clash between student protesters and police in 2019 was cancelled at short notice after a pro-Beijing newspaper claimed the film may violate the national security law.
• Hong Kong’s Ombudsman said that it would investigate the Immigration Department for refusing a work visa to Hong Kong Free Press for its incoming editor in 2020.
• Bao Choy went on trial for allegedly violating the Road Traffic Ordinance in seeking to obtain vehicle licence plate information for a documentary.
• RTHK axed another episode of a current affairs programme at short notice, the ninth such cancellation since the new Director of Broadcasting Patrick Li took office.
• The Hong Kong government announced plans to restrict public and media access to currently available information on company directors listed in the Companies’ Registry.
• RTHK sought to withdraw its entries from journalism awards.

February 2021

• RTHK suspended BBC World News after a ban in China over its Xinjiang reporting. 
• Security officers at the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts barred at least two reporters from attending a trial hearing to protect the identity of a police officer who had provided a witness statement anonymously.
• Hong Kong’s High Court refused to grant bail to media mogul Jimmy Lai again over national security law charges.
• Director of Broadcasting Leung Ka-wing resigned from his post at RTHK six months before the end of his term.
• A Hong Kong government report found “deficiencies” in the editorial management of RTHK.
• Funding for RTHK was cut by 4.6 per cent in the 2021-22 budget.
• Baptist University cancelled the World Press Photo exhibition, which included images of the Hong Kong protests, two days before its expected launch.

January 2021

• The Hong Kong government announced a decision to move Covid-19 press briefings online. It backtracked following criticism from a Hong Kong journalism watchdog.
• Police demanded that Apple Daily hand over the information on journalists who searched for public vehicle licence plate records.
• Police visited the newsrooms of Apple Daily, InMedia and StandNews with search warrants demanding documents relating to the primary election for LegCo in July 2020.
• The head of RTHK, Leung Ka-wing, advised staff not to interview the 55 democrats arrested under the national security law over their alleged involvement in the primary.
• Three people convicted of rioting and assaulting a mainland journalist at the airport during anti-government protests in 2019 were jailed for up to 5 1/2 years.
• Bao Choy pleaded not guilty to making false statements after she obtained vehicle registration information for a film about the 2019 Yuen Long mob attacks.
• The head of Hong Kong’s largest police union slammed public broadcaster RTHK for allegedly biased reporting of a weekend lockdown to combat Covid-19.

• The staff union at RTHK staged a silent protest to support fellow journalist Nabela Qoser, after she was told to accept a new short-term contract or face dismissal.
• The Communications Authority ruled that three episodes of RTHK’s satirical programme Headliner insulted and denigrated the police force, and “strongly advised” the station to follow broadcasting regulations more closely.
• Three parliamentarians from the Norwegian Liberal Party nominated Hong Kong Free Press for a Nobel Peace Prize.

December 2020

• iCable News’ China desk resigned en masse after the broadcaster fired 40 people in the newsroom, citing the impact of Covid-19.
• Secretary for Home Affairs Caspar Tsui said the government would examine “loopholes” in the laws against fake news and misinformation.
• Bookstore Bookazine declined to distribute a book by Hong Kong Free Press political columnist Kent Ewing, citing fears over the national security law.
• The Court of First Instance rejected the Hong Kong Journalists Association’s legal challenge against police “ill-treatment” of the media at protests.
• Prosecutors filed an appeal against the granting of bail to Jimmy Lai after Chinese state media criticised the decision.
• Jimmy Lai resigned from Apple Daily parent company Next Media to “spend more time dealing with his personal affairs.”

November 2020

• Freelance producer Bao Choy was arrested for searching car licence plate records while researching a TV documentary about the 2019 Yuen Long mob attacks.
• A student journalist was charged with obstructing police and resisting arrest in a protest in May.
• Police arrested a journalist for obstruction after she refused to stop filming the arrest of two women in a mass protest in Mong Kok in May.
• Hong Kong Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung banned a planned journalists’ protest against the arrest of Choy, citing Covid-19 restrictions, despite earlier approval.

October 2020

• National security police raided the private office of Jimmy Lai.
• A district councillor was given a suspended prison sentence for publicly identifying the policeman who allegedly shot an Indonesian journalist in the eye.

September 2020

• The University of Hong Kong was asked a long list of “unusual” questions by the Immigration Department when applying for a work visa for a Pulitzer-winning journalist.
• The government reportedly told an independent film distributor to include an official warning in two documentaries about the anti-extradition bill protests.
• Media groups criticised the police decision to stop recognising accreditations issued by journalist associations.
• RTHK journalist Nabela Qoser had her probation extended and was investigated again after she grilled Chief Executive Carrie Lam.

August 2020

• Police ordered reporters from five Hong Kong digital media platforms to leave a press conference.
• Apple Daily newspaper claimed that the personal data of staffers had been published on a doxxing website.
• The Foreign Correspondents’ Club said reporters were facing “highly unusual” problems obtaining visas, including months-long delays.
• Beijing’s foreign affairs office told the FCC in response to “distinguish right from wrong.”
• Pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai was arrested under the national security law.
• More than 100 police raided the newsroom at Lai’s Apple Daily newspaper in Tseung Kwan O.
• Journalist Wilson Li was arrested in connection with a pro-democracy NGO under the national security law.
• Police said they would select which media outlets should have close access to their operations after excluding several local and international news organisations from the Apple Daily raid.
• Dozens of people gathered at shopping malls to protest for press freedom after the arrest of Lai and the newsroom raid.

• Public broadcaster Radio Television Hong Kong removed a website interview with activist-in-exile Nathan Law, citing the national security law.
• The government appointed new members to RTHK’s advisory board.
• The Hong Kong Journalists Association filed a legal challenge against the Communications Authority’s warning concerning RTHK’s Headliner show.
• Over 300 iCable News staff signed a petition against the dismissal of three senior engineers.
• A survey showed some journalists who covered the 2019 protests reported a range of health issues due to crowd control weapons.
• Hong Kong Free Press was denied a work visa for a journalist following an almost six-month wait without any explanation.

July 2020

• The Foreign Correspondents’ Club issued an open letter to Chief Executive Carrie Lam demanding that the government give assurances of press freedom under the national security law.
• Lam said she would guarantee press freedom if the media guaranteed that it would not violate the security law.
• The Hong Kong Journalists Association warned of the “chilling effect” of the law.
• The New York Times moved a third of its Hong Kong staff to Seoul, citing the national security law and the difficulty in securing work visas.
• Police fined journalists at a protest in Yuen Long for allegedly breaching anti-coronavirus social distancing rules.

Media tycoon honoured in absentia as critics decry his 20-year sentence under national security law

The jailed media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai has been awarded Deutsche Welle’s freedom of speech award for his contribution to Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement.

The German public broadcaster said on Thursday that Lai would be presented in absentia with the 12th iteration of the award on 23 June at the DW Global Media Forum in Bonn.

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© Photograph: Vincent Yu/AP

© Photograph: Vincent Yu/AP

© Photograph: Vincent Yu/AP

Hong Kong remains at 140th place on Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) global press freedom index of 180 countries and territories, with the NGO highlighting the 20-year sentence handed down to Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai earlier this year.

The press freedom watchdog released its annual index on Thursday, ahead of World Press Freedom Day on Sunday.

Hong Kong’s position is unchanged from last year. At 140th place, between Rwanda and Syria, the city also remains in the “red zone” – meaning a “very serious” situation.

It has tumbled down press freedom indices since Beijing imposed a national security law in Hong Kong in 2020, in the wake of the pro-democracy protests and unrest that began the summer before.

In 2019, it was at 73rd place. From 2021 to 2022, it fell from 80 to 148, after independent media outlets Apple Daily, Stand News and Citizen News shuttered under authorities’ pressure.

Hong Kong has ranked higher in subsequent years, though RSF has said this was mostly due to changing situations in other places. The city’s press freedom score has fallen consistently, from 41.64 in 2022 to 39.49 this year.

RSF said in a press release that press freedom was at a “25-year low” across the world, with the average score of all countries and territories hitting a record low.

See also: Explainer: The decline of Hong Kong’s press freedom under the national security law

The US fell seven places, and other countries in the Americas, including Ecuador and Peru, also dropped.

Meanwhile, Norway ranks No. 1 for the 10th straight year, followed by the Netherlands, Estonia, Denmark and Sweden.

In Asia, Taiwan is the highest-ranked place at 28. China placed 178th, just after Iran, with North Korea and Eritrea at the bottom of the list.

‘Systemic collapse’

RSF’s Asia Pacific advocacy manager, Aleksandra Bielakowska, told HKFP on Wednesday that Hong Kong had seen a “systemic collapse” in its press freedoms.

The city ranked 18th in 2002, the first year the index was published, she said.

“Hong Kong used to be a stronghold of free press, not only regionally but globally,” Bielakowska said.

She said that in recent years, authorities have been pursuing different ways of dissuading the media from independent reporting, including denying visas to journalists or barring them from entering Hong Kong.

Reporters have also reported being followed by unknown individuals. Most recently, in April, media outlet InMedia said its journalists had received harassing text messages “in recent months” and suspected they were being stalked after work.

When the Hong Kong Journalists Association wrote to the Security Bureau about it, the bureau accused the association of making “groundless speculations” that law enforcement was following reporters.

Bielakowska said this was in line with the authorities’ trend of dismissing claims of harassment of reporters as “rumours.” She said there were “strong indications” that authorities were targeting reporters via “centralised operations.”

Declining press freedom

In a press release published on Thursday, RSF referred to the February jailing of pro-democracy media mogul Lai, the founder of now-defunct newspaper Apple Daily.

The watchdog wrote that “a draconian national security law has allowed the authorities to imprison independent publisher Jimmy Lai, who was recently sentenced to 20 years in prison.”

Lai’s sentence is the longest to be meted out under the national security law so far. He was found guilty in December of conspiring to collude with foreign forces and conspiring to publish seditious materials.

Six former Apple Daily employees were also jailed for up to 10 years, with judges saying they played “affirmative and extensive roles.”

In recent years, there have been reports of journalists being denied visas or entry to Hong Kong. The independent media sector has been targeted by tax audits, while reporters have said they believed they were being followed.

Authorities, however, have maintained that the city continues to enjoy a large degree of press freedom.

After Lai was sentenced, the government said in a statement that it condemned claims that Lai was the victim of “political prosecution.”

“The… case has nothing to do with freedom of the press at all. Over the years, the defendants were using journalism as a guise to commit acts that brought harm to our country and Hong Kong,” the government said.

Worries about visas, academic freedom and safety are making foreign schools, like Sciences Po in Paris, more attractive to some students than the Ivy League.

Sakharov prize winner was given eight-year sentence after process widely condemned as politically motivated

The Polish-Belarusian journalist Andrzej Poczobut, the 2025 Sakharov prize winner, has been freed after five years in a Belarusian penal colony as part of a US-brokered multi-country swap deal.

His release has been confirmed by Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, who posted a picture of him on social media, saying: “Andrzej Poczobut is free! Welcome to your Polish home, my friend.”

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© Photograph: X/@donaldtusk/Reuters

© Photograph: X/@donaldtusk/Reuters

© Photograph: X/@donaldtusk/Reuters

Journalists face rising threats while media ownership is concentrated in fewer hands, leading civil liberties group warns

Journalists in the EU face increasing levels of harassment, threats and violence, while news outlets are owned by a shrinking number of proprietors and public trust in the media has plummeted, a report has found.

The Civil Liberties Union for Europe (Liberties) said the findings of its fifth annual media freedom report, released on Tuesday, should place EU officials “on high alert”, with media freedom and pluralism “under sustained attack” across mainland Europe.

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© Photograph: Bernadett Szabó/Reuters

© Photograph: Bernadett Szabó/Reuters

© Photograph: Bernadett Szabó/Reuters

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has said that a French journalist was denied entry to Hong Kong in November, accusing the city’s authorities of “weaponising visas” against foreign media workers.

Antoine Vedeilhe, who was shooting a documentary for French public broadcaster France Télévisions, was questioned upon arrival at Hong Kong International Airport on November 2 last year, RSF said in a statement on Friday.

He was detained for three hours before being deported without being given a reason, RSF said.

Vedeilhe was the 13th foreign media workers who has been denied entry or a visa by the city’s authorities following Beijing’s imposition of the national security law in 2020, RSF said.

The watchdog said the figure is based on its tally, although it said there is reason to believe many cases have gone unreported due to fear of retaliation.

“On 2 November 2025, [Vedeilhe] was detained for three hours upon arriving at the Hong Kong International Airport… from France, during which he was questioned and subjected to a full-body search before being deported from the territory,” RSF said.

“In the journalist’s view, his detention was a reprisal for his work on a documentary examining Beijing’s grip on Hong Kong.”

Another cameraman for the documentary was able to enter the city, RSF said, but he was followed by “unidentified individuals that he suspects were Hong Kong’s national security police.”

“In the following days, there was a hacking attempt on Vedeilhe’s private email account and his sources in the documentary were harassed by the national security police,” RSF said.

In an emailed reply to HKFP’s enquiries on Friday, the Hong Kong government said it “strongly condemns the smearing remarks and distorted narratives by” RSF.

Hong Kong residents’ human rights and freedoms are protected under China’s constitution and the Basic Law – the city’s mini-constitution – as well as the national security law, the government said.

“As always, the media can exercise their freedom of the press in accordance with the law. Their freedom of commenting on and criticising government policies remains uninhibited as long as this is not in violation of the law,” a government spokesperson said.

The government declined to comment on individual cases. It “accords measures to facilitate the entry of genuine visitors from around the world,” the spokesperson added.

RSF also said France Télévisions received an email from an unknown individual the day after Vedeilhe’s deportation from Hong Kong.

The email warned the French media network that Vedeilhe’s work “comes into conflict” with the national security law and that the outlet’s “editorial choices could be considered ‘incitement to hatred’” – an element of Hong Kong’s sedition offence – according to RSF.

France Télévisions announced the documentary before Vedeilhe’s arrival in Hong Kong, RSF said.

‘Not isolated’

“His case illustrates how closely Hong Kong has aligned itself with China in repressing independent media, and how far the authorities are willing to go in targeting journalists,” RSF’s Asia Pacific advocacy manager, Aleksandra Bielakowska, said in the statement.

Vedeilhe was quoted saying in the statement that he had been travelling to Hong Kong for the past 10 years.

“[I] have always sought to give a voice both to those resisting Beijing’s growing control, and to those within the authorities and civil society who express their attachment to China,” Vedeilhe said.

“My… detention and expulsion are not isolated incidents, and they illustrate how increasingly difficult it has become for journalists to work in Hong Kong,” he added.

Vedeilhe is one of the few to speak openly about being denied entry into Hong Kong.

In August last year, Bloomberg journalist Rebecca Choong Wilkins was denied a work visa renewal by the Immigration Department. At that time, RSF said Wilkins was the 10th journalist whose visa had been denied since the national security law came into force.

Hong Kong has plummeted in international press freedom indices since the onset of the 2020 and 2024 security laws. Watchdogs cite the arrest and jailing of journalists, raids on newsrooms and the closure of around 10 media outlets including Apple Daily, Stand News and Citizen News. Over 1,000 journalists have lost their jobs, whilst many have emigrated. Meanwhile, the city’s government-funded broadcaster RTHK has adopted new editorial guidelines, purged its archives and axed news and satirical shows.

See also: Explainer: Hong Kong’s press freedom under the national security law

In 2022, Chief Executive John Lee said press freedom was “in the pocket” of Hongkongers but “nobody is above the law.” Although he has told the press to “tell a good Hong Kong story,” government departments have been reluctant to respond to story pitches.