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HONG KONG, China (AFP) — Hong Kong has plummeted down a global press freedom chart as authorities have wielded a draconian new safety legislation to silence essential information retailers and jail journalists, a brand new report stated on Tuesday.
For twenty years, media rights watchdog Reporters With out Borders (RSF) has ranked nations and territories all over the world by how free their press is.
Hong Kong, a regional hub for each worldwide and native media, has been steadily slipping down the desk below Chinese language rule.
Within the final yr it has plunged 68 locations to 148th, sandwiching the enterprise hub between the Philippines and Turkey.
“It’s the largest downfall of the yr, however it’s absolutely deserved because of the constant assaults on freedom of the press and the gradual disappearance of the rule of legislation in Hong Kong,” Cedric Alviani, head of RSF’s Taiwan-based East Asia bureau, instructed AFP.
“Previously yr we have now seen a drastic, drastic transfer towards journalists,” he added.
China has imposed more and more authoritarian strictures on Hong Kong following large-scale and generally violent pro-democracy protests three years in the past.
It carried out a sweeping nationwide safety legislation in 2020 that has crushed dissent and seen dozens of democracy activists jailed in addition to journalists.
Alviani stated authorities initially used the legislation to pursue political opponents, however all through 2021 it started to more and more be deployed towards native media.
– Journalists jailed –
Final yr, Apple Each day and Stand Information, two well-liked retailers essential of the federal government, collapsed after newsroom leaders have been arrested and firm property have been frozen by the safety legislation.
Alviani stated RSF’s database lists 13 Hong Kong media employees in jail, a quantity he stated was “monumental” and equal to nearly ten % of all recognized journalist detentions in China.
China has persistently been ranked by RSF as one of many world’s most hostile nations for journalists, and at present sits at a hundred and seventy fifth out of 180.
However till lately Hong Kong was a comparative oasis of free speech due to a “One Nation, Two Techniques” formulation, through which Beijing promised town may maintain key freedoms and autonomy for 50 years after the 1997 handover by Britain.
When RSF revealed its first report in 2002, Hong Kong had a few of the freest media in Asia and ranked 18th worldwide.
For now, the safety legislation has been directed towards native media however questions swirl over the way forward for the worldwide press there.
A number of main information retailers — together with AFP, Bloomberg, CNN, the Economist and the Monetary Instances — have longstanding Asia headquarters within the metropolis.
“No media can do with out correspondents in Hong Kong. However do the media have to have their regional headquarters in Hong Kong?” requested Alviani.
“Is it protected to depart your pc archive, to depart your server, to depart your administration workforce in Hong Kong? Within the present state of affairs possibly not.
Shortly earlier than the rankings have been introduced, metropolis chief Carrie Lam described town’s media scene was “as vibrant as ever”, citing the continued “presence of worldwide and regional media”.
She added, nonetheless, that media organisations should “adjust to the legislation”.
Final week, the International Correspondents’ Membership Hong Kong (FCCHK) scrapped Asia’s most prestigious human rights awards, citing the menace posed by the safety legislation.
Timothy McLaughlin, an impartial journalist who resigned final week from the FCCHK’s press freedom committee in protest over the cancellation, stated the media surroundings was unlikely to enhance.
“What seems much more possible is [the introduction of] extra legal guidelines that can additional constrict the house for the press and draw much more crimson strains for journalists to navigate,” McLaughlin instructed AFP.
© Agence France-Presse
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