Journalists at Hong Kong’s CitizenNews news site today reported the deterioration of press freedom in the area, hours after the site announced that it was shutting down due to security concerns.
The suspension of CitizenNews was announced less than a week after a similar decision was made by the pro-democratic news website Stand News. The media announced that it was closing after the police raid on its offices on December 29 and after the authorities froze his assets and arrested journalists and his executives on the charge of “publishing texts that incite an uprising”.
CitizenNews, a news site founded in 2017 by a team of experienced journalists and sponsored by readers, was one of Hong Kong’s most popular online media, with more than 800,000 followers on social media.
He announced that it closes yesterday Sunday, clarifying that the website will stop being updated from today at midnight.
Today, the last day of CitizenNews, journalists explained that their decision was made after the police raid last week on Stand News.
“We did our best not to break any law, but it is difficult to know the law enforcement framework and we can not feel safe at work,” said Chris Young, co-founder of CitizenNews and former president of the Hong Kong Journalists Association. .
“Journalists are also people who have family and friends,” he added.
Yeung explained that the police did not contact the media reporters, but that they decided to suspend the site because of what happened in other Hong Kong media.
The former British colony was long regarded as a stronghold of press freedom in Asia because of its autonomy from China, and many international media outlets had established their regional headquarters there.
But the climate has worsened significantly since the suppression of the pro-democracy protests in 2019. Moreover, in 2020, Beijing imposed on Hong Kong a draconian national security law, which has become the main tool for silencing any opposition voice.
The pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily – of imprisoned tycoon Jimmy Lai – closed in June after authorities froze its assets and arrested its leaders.
Source: AMPE
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Source From: Capital
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