Hong Kong independent news outlet Citizen News yesterday said that it is to cease operations from today in the face of what it described as a deteriorating media environment in the Chinese-ruled territory and to ensure the safety of its employees.
“Regrettably, the rapid changes in society and worsening environment for media make us unable to achieve our goal fearlessly. Amid this crisis, we have to first make sure everyone on the boat is safe,” Citizen News said in a statement.
Citizen News chief editor Daisy Li (李月華) at a news conference yesterday said that the environment had changed and she did not know what “safe” news was anymore.
Photo: AFP
“If I am no longer confident enough to guide and lead my reporters, I must be responsible,” she said.
The decision to close Citizen News was triggered by last week’s early morning police raid of Stand News, Citizen News chief writer Chris Yeung (楊健興), a former chairman of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, told reporters.
“We could not rule out that ... we might be exposed to some risks,” Yeung said. “Reporting fearlessly means we aren’t afraid of offending the political elite, we criticize the authorities when their policies aren’t right, we don’t shy from covering corporations due to business pressure, but it doesn’t mean we should have to sacrifice our freedom as a price.”
Hundreds of police officers on Wednesday last week raided the Stand News newsroom and two former senior editors of the outlet, including pop star Denise Ho (何韻詩), were charged with conspiring to publish seditious material and denied bail.
The UN, the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders condemned the crackdown as an attack on press freedom.
“The government is abusing a draconian colonial law that has not been used for more than FIVE decades to prosecute journalists,” exiled Hong Kong democracy advocate Nathan Law (羅冠聰) wrote on social media.
It followed last year’s enforced closure of the Apple Daily and the arrest of several journalists and executives, as well as a Hong Kong government-led overhaul of the operations of public broadcaster Radio Television Hong Kong.
Democracy advocates and rights groups say freedoms promised when Hong Kong returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, including freedom of the press, have been increasingly eroded since Beijing imposed a National Security Law in 2020.
In an interview with China News Agency yesterday, Hong Kong Secretary for Security Chris Tang (鄧炳強) lauded his bureau’s arrests of “anti-China agitators,” singling out the “cessation” of the Apple Daily as the most impressive.
Citizen News wrote on Facebook that it has no party affiliation and aims to promote Hong Kong’s core values, such as those of freedom, openness, diversity and inclusion.
In a farewell message of thanks to its readers, the outlet said it had launched in 2017 hoping “to serve the public and greater public good.”
“We may not be the fastest or the most productive outlets in town, but our team, with veterans and young journalists, stand united to publish truthful news reporting with depth,” it wrote. “We all love this place deeply. Regrettably, what was ahead of us is not just pouring rains or blowing winds, but hurricanes and tsunamis.”
The Hong Kong Journalists Association said it was deeply saddened by the closures of the outlets.
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