After the implementation of the National Security Law of Hong Kong, the media environment in Hong Kong has become increasingly hostile. The Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA) took the opportunity of “World Press Freedom Day” to release its latest “Press Freedom Index”, in which the rating of journalists hit an 8-year low of 32.1 points, with most people believing that the “culprit “The HKJA denounced the media as being undermined by the government’s monitoring function on all fronts, including the implementation of the National Security Law, the “Cai Yuling case”, the tightening of the book of investigation, and the “fake news” legislative initiative.
On Monday (3), World Press Freedom Day, the HKJA and the Hong Kong Institute of Public Opinion Research (HKIPOR) released the “Press Freedom Index” survey conducted between February and March this year, reflecting the evaluation of press freedom in the past year, which was divided into interviews with 1,032 members of the public and 382 journalists, on a scale of 0 to 100.
The press freedom index has slightly increased by 0.7 marks to 42.6 marks compared to the last index conducted two years ago, but only because of the decrease in the number of police-public clashes triggered by the anti-amendment movement, the public’s rating of “physical threats to journalists during interviews” has increased significantly. Most people think there is not enough legislation to ensure journalists’ interviews, and the effectiveness of media monitoring and the plurality of media stances have weakened.
As for journalists, their rating is the worst in the past 8 years, only 32.1 marks, a sharp drop of 4.1 marks from last time. About 90% of them think that the overall situation of Hong Kong’s press freedom has regressed compared to a year ago, and the suppression mainly comes from the Hong Kong government.
Yang Jianxing: Hong Kong’s press freedom “the worst ever”
Yang Jianxing, chairman of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, pointed out that Hong Kong’s freedom of the press has deteriorated sharply in the past year, describing it as “the worst ever in Hong Kong”, after the enactment of the Hong Kong National Security Law, the SAR government “all-round” continued to suppress the media, the vast majority of people in the survey believe that the enactment of the Hong Kong National Security Law, the police broke into news organizations to search them indiscriminately. In the survey, the vast majority of people think that the enactment of the Hong Kong national security law, the police broke into news organizations to search indiscriminately, and amend the definition of “media representative” in the police general regulations, various departments to tighten the search book and other damage to the freedom of the press, especially the RTHK clang set editor-director Choi Yuk-ling license plate check was charged with “false statements” into the crime, the media The “most hurt”.
Yang Jianxing replied to our questions, the media coverage of the increasingly high risk, from the previous face of the front-line police conflict, to “many are not reported”, and officials continue to “fake news”, “fake journalists “wantonly attack the media, the government even in various ways to make the media “silent”, gradually to the Chinese mainland media ecological convergence, fear that the media can only become a “propaganda machine”.
Yang Jianxing said: government officials think that some media reports are not to his liking, they will say that these are inaccurate, fake news, and then will advocate legislation; in such an environment, it is difficult for the media to have a healthy development. This is not only a political baggage, but also a political high-risk game. So naturally here (Hong Kong) will be a lot less (media), space is increasingly difficult, the risk is increasingly high.
Another survey also reflected that the media “self-censorship” problem has intensified. Among journalists, 40% of them said that their superiors asked them not to report or to report less on the discussion of “Hong Kong’s independence”, a sharp increase of 7% compared to the previous year, and nearly 70% of them thought that the central officials’ words and deeds in recent years emphasized one country before two systems, and they felt uneasy when reporting voices with different positions.
Yang Jianxing agrees that the reality of the environment has increased the “psychological burden” of the media, “weaponization of national security law”, the Chief Executive himself to set up a system to “rectify” the media, have urged the media to self-censorship. At the same time, the interviewees also feel enormous pressure, and more and more people are worried about touching the national security law and refuse to interview, especially difficult to interview the pan-democrats, making the interview difficult.
U.S. Secretary of State John Blinken also took advantage of World Press Freedom Day to name China as one of the countries that imprisoned the most journalists, urging governments to ensure media safety and protect journalists from violence, threats and detention in journalism.
Recent Comments