Fears over Beijing's crackdown on dissenting voices in Hong Kong
Former news editors say they have been working in an "increasingly tough environment" which is "dangerous for many" journalists, reports ITV News Asia Correspondent Debi Edward
On Tuesday in Hong Kong, another large online news organisation closed and a 36-year-old barrister was sentenced to 15 months in prison for inciting the public to gather for a candlelit vigil.
And the chief executive rejected that the city’s free press is close to extinction.
Carrie Lam now heads up a patriots-only legislative council. The 90 members were elected in December under strict vetting rules from Beijing. They were sworn in on Monday under the Chinese flag and to the sound of the Chinese National anthem.
At her weekly briefing on Tuesday morning, Ms Lam was asked directly about the closure of Citizen News, which was prompted by the raid and arrests at Stand News last week. Stand ceased operations after several of its journalists and former directors were arrested and accused of publishing dissident material.
Ms Lam told reporters that these cases were not related to the national security law imposed by Beijing in 2020, although it was cited by both media organisations. She said if they feel they cannot comply with the law then they must decide what they want to do.
Despite what we heard from the chief executive on Tuesday, and on several occasions before, the National Security Law has evidently led to an erosion of Hong Kong's freedoms.
It has made people fearful of what they say and news organisations censor what they publish. The parameters of what might be deemed seditious or anti-China are broad.
A headline or a single word could fall foul of the law.
As she was sentenced for "inciting unlawful assembly", Chow Hang-tung summed up the situation with this statement.
"Tyranny is greedy, red lines will keep expanding."
The 36-year-old was arrested on the eve of the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre last year.
She had written a post online encouraging people to light a candle and never forget the lives lost in Beijing on June 4, 1989.
In court the judge said her posts "amounted to inciting others to knowingly take part in an unauthorised assembly". She had already been sentenced to 12 months in prison on unlawful assemble charges relating to June 4, 2020.
Citizen News was one of the largest independent outlets still publishing but its editors decided to shut, before they were forced to do so.
The police swoop on Stand News last week had echoes of when Apple Daily was raided last year and its owner, the prominent pro-democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai, was put in prison.
It appears that was just the start of a crackdown on all critical or liberal media.
There was a 'joke' doing the rounds that journalists felt the only thing they could safely write these days was their name and the date.