Two out of three journalists say the working environment in Hong Kong has changed “for the worse” in the past year, according to the latest survey by the Foreign Correspondents’ Club.
The 2026 FCC Press Freedom Survey, which received 78 responses from members, found that “67 per cent of respondents said the working environment for them as a journalist had changed for the worse in the last 12 months.”
The FCC pointed out that the survey “happened to take place” after Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai was convicted and sentenced to jail, as well as Beijing’s national security office in Hong Kong, the Office for Safeguarding National Security (OSNS), summoned representatives of several major foreign media outlets, shortly following the deadly Wang Fuk Court fire.
At the meeting, the OSNS warned that some media organisations had spread false information and smeared the government in reports on the massive blaze at the housing estate in Tai Po, which killed 168 people and displaced thousands of residents.
One respondent said that the warning by the OSNS to foreign journalists “should be seen as a watershed moment here in Hong Kong. It has created an increased chilling effect.”
About a quarter of respondents said they experienced minor or significant interference in their work, with most describing incidents while covering the Tai Po fire. One journalist said they were told to leave when they were “speaking to survivors in a corner, disturbing no one.”
Another respondent said that the 20-year sentence handed down to Lai “only further chills the local reporting environment.”
More than 50 per cent said sources had become less willing to be quoted during the same period, the survey found.
One respondent was quoted as saying that “the scope of what is ‘acceptable’ in terms of who can be quoted” has narrowed each year.
“It has reached the point where non-political voices who question policy-making or have reservations about certain aspects of it will get cut or reduced significantly by editors,” the respondent added.
Fewer respondents had a clear sense of what subjects are sensitive in the most recent survey, down from 78 per cent last year to 65 per cent this year, with one respondent saying the Beijing-imposed national security law “is still rather fluid and capricious.”
Half of the respondents said they were “slightly concerned” about arrest or prosecution in relation to their work as journalists, while 41 said they were not. The remaining 9 per cent said they were very concerned.
A third of respondents said their organisations had downsized in Hong Kong. Among them, a third cited the political and legal environment as well as corporate cost-cutting.
But 17 per cent of respondents said their organisations had increased staff in the city, with 40 per cent of them citing “the growing importance of Hong Kong” and increased investment.
“Press freedom remains engrained in Hong Kong law, but as is apparent from the results of our survey, the sentiment for working journalists in the city has been in flux,” said FCC President Morgan Davis.
“The FCC supports journalists’ fundamental right to conduct their work freely and without fear of intimidation or harassment,” the club said in its statement.
“We will continue to safeguard press freedom in the city, via engagement with the journalism community and relevant stakeholders, in order to make sure that Hong Kong remains an international hub for media, business and finance.”
A defence lawyer for a Tiananmen vigil activist has urged a Hong Kong court not to “pay lip service” to human rights protections, arguing that calls to “end one-party rule” in China should be considered legitimate political expressions.
Barrister Erik Shum, representing Lee Cheuk-yan, spoke before a three-judge panel on Monday as closing arguments began in the national security trial of Lee and Chow Hang-tung. Both are former leaders of the now-defunct Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China.
The pair and the Alliance are facing a charge of “inciting subversion,” an offence under the Beijing-imposed national security law, over the group’s calls to end one-party rule in China during decades of candlelight vigils commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown. The offence carries a maximum penalty of 10 years behind bars.
The calls to end one-party rule – one of the group’s five tenets that also included the democratisation of China since its founding in 1989 – were demanding a change in the country’s political system rather than targeting any specific political party, Shum said.
Shum told the court on Monday that prosecutors had failed to present evidence that the Alliance sought to incite the public to revolt against the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
The Alliance had never proposed an “action plan” to mobilise supporters to topple the CCP, he added.
“In the past 30 years, there has been no evidence showing that any person acted under the Alliance’s specific instruction,” Shum said in Cantonese.
Prosecutors have argued that there are no “lawful means” to end CCP rule after a 2018 constitutional amendment stipulates that the party’s leadership is the “defining feature” of China’s socialist system.
Shum argued on Monday that prosecutors presented a “tautological theory.”
“We ask: How exactly did the Alliance incite others to overthrow the CCP? And my submission is that the prosecution has always reverted to the claim that ending CCP rule is illegal,” Shum said.
Shum urged the court to draw a boundary for what is considered an acceptable political expression and what is not.
“The court must not pay lip service to human rights protections,” he said.
Judge Alex Lee, one of the three national security judges presiding over the trial, asked Shum to elaborate on how higher courts interpreted illegal means in the landmark “Hong Kong 47” case, in which 45 pro-democracy campaigners were found guilty of subversion.
Shum argued that the case revolved around the group’s plan to indiscriminately veto the government budget once they were elected as lawmakers, which was ruled a breach of duty and an abuse of power.
The Alliance, however, was not exercising any power, and its calls should be considered civilian political criticism, Shum said.
“On this side of the spectrum is dissatisfaction with the status quo. Is that not allowed to be said?” he said.
Also delivering closing arguments on Monday, lead prosecutor Ned Lai said the Alliance’s calls should be interpreted as toppling China’s “fundamental system” and the country’s central political bodies.
Lai argued the Alliance’s calls had exceeded the legitimate boundary of freedom of expression as the defendants intended to stoke hatred against Beijing.
“We say that their behaviour had crossed the line,” he said in Cantonese. “Freedom is not absolute.”
The prosecutor also said the defendants’ advocacy for democratisation was irrelevant to the case as their calls amounted to a breach of the law.
Judge Lee appeared skeptical of Lai’s submission, saying that the court may have to consider whether the defendants “genuinely believed” that their behaviour was lawful.
Chow, a barrister representing herself in the trial, is set to deliver her closing arguments on Tuesday.
For decades, the Alliance organised vigils at Victoria Park to commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown in Beijing, when hundreds, perhaps thousands, were killed as troops dispersed pro-democracy demonstrators in and around Tiananmen Square.
The Alliance disbanded in 2021 after authorities banned the vigil for two years, citing Covid-19 restrictions, and arrested its leadership on national security allegations. Chow and Lee have been behind bars since September 2021.
A third defendant, former lawmaker Albert Ho, was excused from attending the rest of the proceedings after pleading guilty when the trial opened in January.
In April, the 70th month since Beijing imposed the national security law, the Hong Kong government applied to the court to seize assets belonging to Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence.
On National Education Day, a top Chinese official delivered a warning about those who “politicised” the deadly Tai Po fire and tried to “stir up chaos” in the city.
The Hong Kong government filed an application with the High Court on April 2 to seize “offence-related” properties owned by jailed pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai on national security grounds.
In a statement issued the same day, the government mentioned Lai’s earlier convictions under the Beijing-imposed national security law. It said the High Court had found that he was the “mastermind and driving force behind the case, consciously using Apple Daily and his personal influence” to undermine local and Beijing authorities.
In a writ dated April 2, the secretary for justice listed HK$127 million in assets to be “forfeited” to the authorities.
The assets include credit balances in bank accounts belonging to or linked to the Apple Daily founder.
Fifteen bank accounts under Lai’s name – 10 with HSBC, two with Hang Seng Bank and three with Shanghai Commercial and Savings Bank – have over HK$32 million.
The government is also seeking to seize bank accounts belonging to 17 companies linked to Lai. It is also demanding that Lai give up shares in 17 companies, some of which overlap with the 17 firms whose assets the government is seeking to seize.
Among the companies whose assets and shares the government wants to seize are Dico Consultants Ltd, which has over HK$404,302 in its HSBC account, and Lai’s Hotel Properties Ltd, which has over HK$3.1 million in its four HSBC accounts.
Lai has been summoned to the High Court on July 8 to hear the government’s application. The case will be presided over by Esther Toh, one of the three judges who heard his national security trial.
The move to seize Lai’s assets came after the government designated three companies linked to Lai’s now-defunct Apple Daily tabloid “prohibited organisations” in late March and removed them from the corporate registry. Police cordoned off the Apple Daily building in Tseung Kwan O a day later.
The three firms were tried and convicted alongside the Apple Daily founder in his high-profile national security case. Lai was sentenced to 20 years behind bars in early February, while the companies were each fined over HK$3 million.
A Hong Kong political commentator charged with disclosing details of a national security investigation appeared at the District Court on April 28.
Wong Kwok-ngon, known by his pen name Wong On-yin, has been detained since his arrest in December for allegedly divulging in a YouTube video details of enquiries made by police during a national security investigation.
Judge Stanley Chan said the pre-trial review would take place behind closed doors on August 11, and the trial would begin on October 9.
Wong’s offence falls under the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, a homegrown security law known as Article 23. It was added to the ordinance in May as part of subsidiary legislation, and Wong is the first to be charged under the new law.
He is also charged with sedition over videos posted on YouTube between January 3 and December 6 last year. He plans to plead not guilty to both charges.
The defendant, who continues to represent himself, told the court he had dropped his legal aid application.
Asked by the judge whether he had legal knowledge for self-defence, Wong said he had “three law degrees” and was confident of handling the case.
Secretary for Environment and Ecology Tse Chin-wan said in early April that all Hong Kong restaurant licences would include national security clauses from September.
Tse made the remarks on April 7, nearly a year after the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) introduced the provisions for restaurant licence renewals in May.
“With restaurants renewing their licences gradually, we expect that by September this year, all restaurant licences will contain the clauses,” Tse told reporters, according to RTHK.
A Hong Kong man was jailed for a year under the city’s homegrown national security law after pleading guilty to making seditious remarks on Facebook, including comments supporting Hong Kong’s and Taiwan’s independence.
Raymond Chong pleaded guilty before national security judge Victor So at West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts on April 14 to one count of knowingly publishing publications with a seditious intention – an offence under the city’s local security law, also known as Article 23.
The magistrate handed Chong, a retiree in his early 60s, an 18-month sentence but discounted it by six months after considering his guilty plea.
Chong was accused of making 53 seditious social media posts between March 2024 and November 2025, local media reported.
The posts had wording such as “dissolving the Chinese Communist Party is the most important thing” and “Hong Kong independence is within sight.”
The defendant posted on a public Facebook page called “Holy Raymond,” which features the Chinese phrase “Heaven will destroy the Chinese Communist Party, God bless Hong Kong” as its profile picture.
During mitigation ahead of sentencing, his lawyer argued that Chong was a Falun Gong believer who had come to hate the Chinese Communist Party because of false information that the CCP engaged in live organ harvesting.
China’s top official in charge of Hong Kong affairs warned of some people who “politicised” the deadly Tai Po fire and tried to use the disaster to “stir up chaos” in Hong Kong.
Xia Baolong, director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office, delivered his remarks on April 15 via a recorded video shown at a National Security Education Day ceremony.
In his speech, Xia mentioned the massive fire that broke out at Wang Fuk Court, a government-subsidised housing estate in Tai Po, on November 26, killing 168 people.
“After the Tai Po fire, some malicious people politicised the tragedy, attempting to use the disaster as a means to disrupt Hong Kong,” Xia said in Mandarin, without giving further details.
“Once again, it reminds us that along Hong Kong’s path toward prosperity under good governance, there will be various risks and challenges.”
Speaking at the same event, Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee also warned that some people were “using the disaster to stir up chaos” and “to incite hatred” in Hong Kong.
“Only through the government’s swift action and decisive law enforcement has the situation been able to return to normal,” Lee said in Mandarin.
A French journalist was denied entry to Hong Kong in November, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said in late April, 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 April 24.
He was detained for three hours before being deported without being given a reason, it added.
The press freedom NGO said Vedeilhe was the 13th foreign media worker who had been denied entry or a visa by the city’s authorities following Beijing’s imposition of the national security law in 2020.
“In the journalist’s view, his detention was a reprisal for his work on a documentary examining Beijing’s grip on Hong Kong,” RSF said.
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,” the NGO said.
In an emailed reply to HKFP’s enquiries, the Hong Kong government said it “strongly condemns the smearing remarks and distorted narratives by” RSF.
As of April 1, a total of 394 people have been arrested for “cases involving suspected acts or activities that endanger national security” since Beijing’s national security law came into effect, according to the Security Bureau. That figure includes those arrested under Article 23 and for other offences.
Of the 208 people and five companies that have so far been charged, 180 people and four companies have been convicted or are awaiting sentencing.
In total, 100 people and four companies have been charged under Beijing’s national security law, with 79 persons and three companies convicted. Thirteen people have been charged under Article 23, 10 of whom have been convicted.
China accused the United States on Thursday of distorting facts and smearing its political system, after Secretary of State Marco Rubio said censorship could not “erase” the memory of Beijing’s 1989 Tiananmen crackdown.
On June 4 that year, the Chinese government sent troops and tanks to crush protests calling for political reform in and around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
The death toll remains unknown, and discussion of what happened is censored in mainland China.
Rubio told a news conference on Wednesday that “no amount of censorship can erase the past”.
“Those who sacrificed to uphold their unalienable rights of free expression and peaceful assembly will be vindicated someday,” he said.
China’s foreign ministry said Thursday it firmly opposed Rubio’s comments.
“The Chinese government has long since reached a clear conclusion regarding that political turmoil that occurred in the late 1980s,” ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told a regular news briefing.
“The relevant erroneous remarks by the US side distort historical facts, smear China’s political system and development path, and interfere in China’s internal affairs,” she said.
This year, authorities reportedly prevented the families of those who died in 1989 from visiting their graves at Beijing’s Wan’an Cemetery, with Amnesty International calling the move “a heartless act”.
Beijing has also moved in recent years to snuff out all public commemorations in Hong Kong, where an annual candlelight vigil had been held for decades before the imposition of a national security law in 2020.
AFP reporters saw a heavy police presence on Wednesday near Hong Kong’s Victoria Park, the former site of the event.
Late that night, activist Tang Ngok-kwan stood alone in the park, reading the names of hundreds of victims in a low voice under the watchful eyes of several plainclothes police officers.
Derek Chu, a former district councillor who has been giving out free candles in his shop every anniversary since 2022, told AFP that “the space for (free) speech is more and more narrow”.
The Hong Kong government has denied any link to the high-profile UK court case after its trade officer was convicted of spying on overseas activists.
“From the outset, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government has been clearly stating that the allegations in this case are absolutely not related to the HKSAR Government and the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London (London ETO), nor are we party to the case,” a government statement sent to the media on Friday morning read.
“We firmly oppose any unfounded allegations against the HKSAR Government and the London ETO.”
The statement was issued shortly after Bill Yuen, an office manager at the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London, and former UK Border Force official Peter Wai were found guilty under Britain’s national security laws of assisting a foreign intelligence service.
Yuen and Wai – both British-Chinese dual nationals – were accused of spying on Hong Kong pro-democracy activists living in Britain.
Among those the pair were said to have surveilled was Nathan Law, who is wanted by national security police in Hong Kong with a bounty of HK$1,000,000.
Yuen and Wai were charged in May 2024 alongside a third person, UK immigration officer Matthew Trickett. A week after Trickett was charged, he was found dead in a suspected suicide.
In full: Explainer: Why UK authorities arrested 3 men linked to Hong Kong’s trade office
According to a statement by UK counter-terrorism police, published after the guilty verdict on Thursday, Yuen had been receiving tasks from Hong Kong authorities and delegating them to Wai and Trickett.
Yuen and Wai were found guilty by a 10-2 jury verdict on Thursday. Wai was also found guilty of misconduct in public office in relation to abusing Home Office systems while working as a border control officer.
Yuen and Wai will be sentenced on a date yet to be determined. They face up to 14 years in jail.
According to the Friday statement, Hong Kong has 15 overseas ETOs in different cities, including the UK capital.
The London office maintains “close liaison with interlocutors in government, business, think tanks and various sectors to enhance the bilateral ties between Hong Kong and the UK in areas including trade, investment, and arts and culture,” it said.
After the guilty verdict, the UK said that it would summon the Chinese ambassador.
“We will continue to hold China to account and challenge them directly for actions which put the safety of people in our country at risk,” UK Security Minister Dan Jarvis said on Thursday. “That is why the Foreign Office will summon the Chinese Ambassador to make it clear activity like this was, and will always be, unacceptable on UK soil.”
In a statement issued the same day, the Chinese embassy in London condemned the verdict, saying that the UK had manipulated the judicial process as part of its “political move.”
“Its sole purpose is to embolden those anti-China elements who are hiding in the UK and bent on destabilising Hong Kong, and to smear the Chinese government and the Hong Kong SAR government,” it said.
Two Hong Kong officials have condemned “groundless accusations” against a recent update to the city’s homegrown national security law, which empowers the chief executive to certify any criminal case as a national security offence.
Secretary for Security Chris Tang told the Legislative Council (LegCo) on Thursday afternoon that he noticed some people had misunderstood or “deliberately misinterpreted” the subsidiary legislation.
They tried to intimidate the public by claiming that the subsidiary law would widen the scope of national security offences, turning minor offences into national security crimes, he said.
The security chief called the accusations “false, misleading, deceptive, and scaremongering” and said some people were attempting to incite hatred towards the government.
“Some people delivered alarmist remarks, saying that the government can randomly certify any acts of the public as national security offences. Those people may have ulterior motives or are cruel-hearted, hoping to incite others’ hatred of the HKSAR,” Tang said in Cantonese.
Also speaking at LegCo, Secretary for Justice Paul Lam said he noticed “some media outlets with ulterior motives, foreign forces, and fugitives” had made “groundless accusations” against the national security law.
The two ministers delivered their remarks during LegCo’s first meeting to review the Safeguarding National Security (Procedural Matters) Regulation, a subsidiary legislation of the homegrown national security law, commonly known as Article 23.
Authorities enacted the subsidiary law through the “negative vetting” mechanism, which allows the law to be gazetted and to take effect before legislative scrutiny.
The law came into effect on Tuesday, one day after the government tabled the bill in LegCo.
Lam, the justice chief, said that the subsidiary legislation was necessary to further explain articles in the Beijing-imposed national security law and Article 23, which stipulate that the chief executive should have the power to determine whether a criminal case involves national security.
In its proposal, the government cited the “legislative intent” of the Beijing-imposed national security law, saying that offences endangering national security include not only the four types of offences under the national security law, but also “other offences endangering national security under the law of the HKSAR.”
Lam said the recent legislative update was intended to further define “other offences endangering national security under the law of the HKSAR,” and it did not introduce any new power or new offences.
Earlier on Tuesday, Chief Executive John Lee said the new subsidiary legislation “is purely to make the law even clearer.”
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