New Hong Kong Watch Report claims press freedom in Hong Kong is "being dismantled" and calls for international action to protect journalists

A new report by Hong Kong Watch finds that press freedom in Hong Kong is “dire” and calls on the international community to step up its monitoring of the situation, speak out against violations of press freedom and freedom of expression and provide a lifeline to journalists at risk of arrest in the city.

The report – In the Firing Line: The Crackdown on Media Freedom in Hong Kong – will be launched at 5PM GMT on 26 April 2022 at an event in the House of Commons hosted by Catherine West MP, Shadow Minister for Asia and a Patron of Hong Kong Watch. A panel including the distinguished journalist and broadcaster Stephen Vines, who lived in Hong Kong for 35 years before leaving last year, along with former Ming Pao reporter Matthew Leung, Reporters Without Borders’ Campaigns Officer Azzurra Moores and the report’s author, Hong Kong Watch’s Chief Executive Benedict Rogers, will discuss the report findings at the event.

Based on first-hand interviews with over 10 journalists from Hong Kong now in exile, as well as reports by all the leading Hong Kong and global press freedom organisations, Hong Kong Watch’s new report details a variety of ways in which the Hong Kong authorities have curtailed press freedom in the city, ranging from police violence against media workers to police raids of newsrooms, from the closure of independent media outlets to the management shake-up at the public broadcasters Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK), from draconian laws leading to the arrest of reporters and editors to the weaponization of visas for foreign correspondents and restrictions on access to public records.

The report presents a range of recommendations for governments around the world, including a call to issue emergency travel documents and visas to Hong Kong journalists at risk of arrest, and continued punitive measures to pressure the Hong Kong government to uphold guarantees for a free press which are enshrined in Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law.

Stephen Vines, a former correspondent for The Observer, contributor to The Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Independent and The Guardian and a former broadcaster on RTHK, says in his Foreword that “this report meticulously documents the way in which media freedom has been destroyed” and argues that “exposing the way in which the Chinese dictatorship behaves when it has the opportunity to destroy freedom serves as a vital reminder to the rest of the world of the dangers posed by the Communist regime as it spreads its influence in the international community.”

Benedict Rogers, Chief Executive of Hong Kong Watch and author of the report, says: “Press freedom is a fundamental pillar of any free, open society. As someone who began my career in 1997 as a young journalist in Hong Kong, I always regarded the freedom of the press in Hong Kong as one of the city’s greatest assets. Today, it has been almost completely dismantled, as this comprehensive report details, and it is time for the international community to act to ensure that we help brave journalists who continue to take risks to do their jobs in Hong Kong, and to ensure that those responsible for dismantling Hong Kong’s press freedom face consequences and are not allowed to get away with impunity.”

Click here to read the full report.

香港監察發表香港新聞自由報告

呼籲國際社會採取行動保護新聞工作者

香港監察最新的研究報告指香港的新聞自由狀況非常嚴峻，呼籲國際社會加強監察形勢發展，以及就侵害新聞自由和言論自由的行為發聲，並為面臨被捕風險的新聞工作者提供逃生出路。

名為《站在抗爭前線 – 香港新聞自由遭受的各種打壓》的研究報告將在今天(4月26日)下午5時於下議院一項活動上發佈，該活動由影子亞洲事務大臣及香港監察贊助人 Catherine West MP 議員主持。曾在香港工作接近35年的著名新聞工作者 Stephen Vines 、前《明報》記者 Matthew Leung 、無國界記者英國倡議統籌 Azzurra Moores 、以及香港監察行政總裁兼報告作者羅傑斯將討論調查結果。

香港監察的研究報告訪問了十多名正在流亡的新聞工作者，並綜合香港及全球所有主要研究新聞自由的機構的報告，深入追蹤香港政府如何透過不同的方法打壓新聞自由，包括警方向新聞工作者使用武力、警方大肆搜查新聞編輯室、多間獨立新聞機構倒閉、香港電台管理層重組、新聞工作者在嚴苛的法例下被捕、阻撓外國記者申請簽證、以及限制查閱公共記錄等。

報告呼籲各國政府採取行動，包括向面臨被捕風險的香港新聞工作者簽發緊急旅遊證件及簽證、以及繼續向香港政府施壓，要求香港政府維護受《基本法》保障的新聞自由。

前《觀察家報》記者、《每日電訊報》、《泰晤士報》、《獨立報》和《衛報》撰稿人、以及前香港電台廣播員Stephen Vines在研究報告的序言中寫道︰「這份報告詳細地記錄新聞自由如何被催毀」，並指「揭示中國政權如何利用每個機會催毀自由，正好提醒世界各國中共政權在國際社會擴展其影響力時所構成的危險。」

香港監察行政總裁兼研究報告作者羅傑斯表示︰「新聞自由是所有自由和開放社會的基石。我在1997年在香港任職記者及開始建立我的事業，我一直視新聞自由為香港其中一項最重要的資產。來到今天，正如報告所述，新聞自由已差不多被完全摧毀，國際社會應作出回應，確保我們能幫助仍然勇敢地冒著風險、留守香港工作的新聞工作者，以及確保有份摧毀香港新聞自由的人為他們的所為承擔後果，不會逍遙法外。」

按此閱讀完整報告(英文版)。

Reports, News, LongReadGuest User