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2022 is off to a foul begin for Hong Kong’s free press. The Cantonese Citizen Information, one of many few outstanding unbiased information retailers nonetheless standing in Hong Kong, was the newest to perish, saying its dissolution on Sunday simply days after the closure of unbiased media outlet Stand Information. Lau Siu Fung and Raymond Chung from Radio Free Asia described how Citizen Information bade farewell to its readers over the weekend:
“Citizen Information will stop operations from Jan. 4, 2022,” the positioning stated in a submit to its Fb web page on the weekend. “The web site will not be up to date, and can finally shut down solely.”
“It’s with nice unhappiness that we thank all of our subscribers for his or her assist; we are going to carry your deep love with us, recorded in our recollections,” the award-winning platform, crowdfunded in 2017, informed its greater than 800,000 followers. [Source]
We introduced with a heavy coronary heart that CitizenNews will stop operation ranging from Jan 4 (Tue).
To our subscribers and readers, we sincerely thanks in your assist. We will all the time treasure this unbelievable journey prior to now 5 years. pic.twitter.com/32nSlQFAZR— 眾新聞 CitizenNews (@hkcnews_com) January 2, 2022
Citizen Information chief author and former Hong Kong Journalists’ Affiliation president Chris Yeung informed reporters that “the choice was made inside a brief time frame. The set off level was the destiny of Stand Information.” Hong Kong Free Press described how one other main consider Citizen Information’ resolution to close down was uncertainty about whether or not its reporting had damaged any legal guidelines below the brand new nationwide safety regime:
“We can not rule out [the possibility] that our studies or articles prior to now few years” have damaged legal guidelines, Yeung stated on Monday.
He added that the outlet had not been approached by legislation enforcement, however that he heard “immediately and not directly” that on-line media retailers have been being focused.
[…] “If we proceed, we are able to’t report on the information we need to report. There isn’t a different alternative however to cease,” Yeung, previously the chair of the Hong Kong Journalists Affiliation (HKJA), stated.
[…] [CitizenNews’ chief editor, Daisy] Li, a media veteran who led the web division of Taiwan’s Apple Each day, stated she was not assured that she would be capable to lead her group of reporters given the shifting purple traces within the media surroundings.
“We can not grasp whether or not a narrative or an article or a sentence contravenes a legislation below the newly modified surroundings,” including that suspending the outlet is the “accountable resolution” to make. [Source]
VIDEO: Journalists from Hong Kong media outlet CitizenNews decried plummeting press freedoms as they closed on Monday, saying they not felt protected to publish after colleagues at a rival publication have been arrested for “sedition” pic.twitter.com/bLuf4FINlj
— AFP Information Company (@AFP) January 3, 2022
Hong Kong unbiased on-line information portal Citizen Information stated it would stop operations within the face of what its chief author described as an ‘more and more powerful’ media surroundings within the Chinese language-ruled metropolis https://t.co/baIpOCEpvj pic.twitter.com/VnahWtQni2
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 3, 2022
Helen Davidson from the Guardian reported that Citizen Information was unwilling to sacrifice the protection of its employees so as to pursue its aim of fearless reporting:
“Regrettably, the speedy adjustments in society and worsening surroundings for media make us unable to realize our aim fearlessly. Amid this disaster, we’ve got to first make sure that everybody on the boat is protected,” Citizen Information, which was established in 2017, stated in a press release.
[…] “Reporting fearlessly means we aren’t afraid of offending the political elite, we criticise the authorities when their insurance policies aren’t proper, we don’t shy from protecting firms attributable to enterprise stress,” he stated, in accordance with native media. “But it surely doesn’t imply we should always must sacrifice our freedom as a worth.” [Source]
Based in 2017, Citizen Information ran largely on particular person reader subscriptions and donations. Its roughly 40-person group was composed of current journalism graduates and veterans from different native media retailers, together with iCable Information due to an inflow of award-winning journalists after mass layoffs of employees vital of the federal government. Austin Ramzy from The New York Instances described how Citizen Information supplied a useful voice for native pro-democracy actions:
Stand Information and Citizen Information have been a part of a flourishing media scene that arose protecting pro-democracy protest actions in Hong Kong. They carried few commercials, as an alternative counting on donations. They have been constructed for on-line readers, usually livestreaming protests for hours on finish.
When the protest motion was stamped out by widespread arrests and a sweeping safety legislation, they turned their focus to the courts, documenting dozens of felony circumstances in opposition to protesters and opposition politicians.
Citizen Information was based 5 years in the past by a handful of editors and reporters with lengthy expertise at different information retailers in Hong Kong. The corporate’s small dimension generally meant they couldn’t match the comprehensiveness of bigger publications. However they dug into native points, usually delivering scoops on how the authorities have been urgent their authorized marketing campaign in opposition to the opposition.
[…] “They have been super-professional of their information evaluation, super-rigorous of their fact-checking and in addition, that is the vital half, they weren’t afraid to talk reality to energy,” Mr. Tsui [Lokman Tsui, former journalism professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong,] stated. “That’s what’s doing them in proper now.” [Source]
As a diasporic HKer, I would relied on RTHK’s 鏗鏘集, Stand Information, and @hkcnews_com to remain as near HK as attainable, each politically and emotionally. Stand Information’ blogs And particular studies have been particularly illuminating as they featured various voices and detailed investigations.
— Sharon Yam (任萃言) (@sharonyamsy) January 2, 2022
It is very easy to think about them as “simply one other” media that bit the mud. However Stand Information and Citizen Information had sheltered journalists from mainstream retailers reminiscent of RTHK, iCable and Apple Each day. They have been the one refuge that remained.
— Rachel Cheung (@rachel_cheung1) January 2, 2022
lots of my college students misplaced their job. many have been in search of refuge, going from one information org to the following, like a perverse sort of musical chairs. considered one of my college students went from cable information, to apple day by day, to citizen information. what’s subsequent for her?
— lokman tsui (@lokmantsui) January 2, 2022
Many simplified Chinese language feedback within the chatbox: “Thanks China Staff. I am a mainlander. I am sick of the information within the mainland and have been following you. Thanks for creating tales of the “actual China”. You’ve got been wronged by CCP. I am very sorry I am unable to do a factor. Be properly.” https://t.co/V9JPur08sE pic.twitter.com/xMxcnbzBeF
— Okay Tse (@ktse852) January 3, 2022
What the @hkcnews_com report does do is present how the nationwide safety legislation blends in with different legal guidelines and procedures in Hong Kong and permits the reader to kind a view on such developments.
Extremely informative, and one thing that will probably be missed when @hkcnews_com is gone.
— Aaron Mc Nicholas (@aaronMCN) January 3, 2022
1000’s of viewers tuned in to observe the final episode of Citizen Information:
One factor to notice right here is that unbiased information retailers in HK are closing not due to a scarcity of demand – Apple Each day offered out on their final days, CitizenNews was (*sigh*) getting readers & viewers. They’re closing as a result of they’re pressured to. https://t.co/cW6lQLcdQc
— Niao Collective (@NiaoCollective) January 3, 2022
The uncooked ache and pure ardour that the younger reporters present within the final episode of @hkcnews_com One other Day in Hong Kong is heart-breaking, the calm resolve of journalists just a few years their senior, spectacular (disclosure: a few of whom I knew as college students). https://t.co/uLeW9XDQgM
— Yuen Chan (@xinwenxiaojie) January 3, 2022
Citizen Information employees left heartfelt goodbye messages for his or her viewers and fellow colleagues:
“Bear in mind our highest reminiscence,” stated @hkcnews_com chief author Chris Yeung earlier than the information web site stop operation.
“Nobody is aware of what’s going to occur subsequent. Don’t fear. Simply keep in mind the pleased issues.” pic.twitter.com/kFjcu6GGPD
— Alvin Lum (@alvinllum) January 3, 2022
“This isn’t my first time to say goodbye to the viewers. However to face it as soon as once more, it’s actually not straightforward. I consider many Hongkongers are going through it collectively, & I consider we will probably be stronger after many challenges” – ex Cable TV, Apple Each day, @hkcnews_com journalist Ingrid Tse pic.twitter.com/d3tAHuMUI6
— Kris Cheng (@krislc) January 3, 2022
And remaining episode of @hkcnews_com‘s “Hong Kong At this time.” One reporter’s farewell message: “Saying ‘add oil’ feels a bit low cost, bc I do not know the place so as to add the oil…I simply hope we are able to report, in order that we can’t once more have ppl going to jail bc of their reporting.” pic.twitter.com/8w3R3KSJK8
— Mary Hui (@maryhui) January 3, 2022
Few media retailers in Hong Kong have remained unscathed for the reason that Nationwide Safety Legislation took impact in July 2020. Public broadcaster Radio Tv Hong Kong (RTHK) has made a gradual slide from watchdog to lapdog. Final June, Apple Each day was forcibly shut down, and final week, Stand Information fell sufferer to the identical destiny. Now, InMedia Hong Kong is town’s oldest surviving unbiased Chinese language-language on-line outlet, with Hong Kong Free Press its most outstanding English-language counterpart. Initium, one other Chinese language-language media outlet in Hong Kong, moved its headquarters to Singapore final August. Some worldwide press in Hong Kong, together with The New York Instances, have lowered their presence within the metropolis. As one nameless former Stand Information journalist mirrored, “Why has town deteriorated so rapidly to the state that even regular media retailers should not allowed to exist?” Journalism professor Yuen Chan equally informed Deutsche Welle:
“In some ways, right this moment’s announcement just isn’t a shock — it was a matter of time,” she informed DW. “However the pace at which these occasions have occurred — in a matter of months — is brutal.”
— William Yang (@WilliamYang120) January 3, 2022
The Hong Kong authorities and Beijing’s mouthpieces in Hong Kong have shed no tears on the lack of town’s unbiased media retailers. The World Instances cheered the dissolution of Citizen Information, claiming that “Citizen Information has performed a infamous position in instigating social divergence and defying the constitutional order of Hong Kong.” Hong Kong’s Secretary for Safety Chris Tang Ping-keung informed China Information Company that he was happy with the arrest of “anti-China agitators” and was significantly impressed with the termination of Apple Each day. Some authorities even clapped again at criticism of Hong Kong’s eroding press freedom. Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng said that international criticism of the arrests of Stand Information journalists is “in blatant violation of worldwide legislation.” Chief Secretary John Lee Ka-chiu, the second highest-ranking official in Hong Kong, threatened to “take obligatory motion” in opposition to The Wall Road Journal for a current editorial decrying the CCP’s authoritarian assault on Hong Kong’s media.
At her weekly presser, Hong Kong chief Carrie Lam was requested about press freedoms and the closures within the final week of each Stand Information and Citizen Information.
This is what she needed to say: pic.twitter.com/4hiY569db5
— Jerome Taylor (@JeromeTaylor) January 4, 2022
Final week, behind heavy safety and obstacles to dam media entry, Hong Kong police dismantled the Pillar of Disgrace memorial to the victims of the Tiananmen bloodbath and eliminated it from the College of Hong Kong (HKU) campus. This destruction of memorials has since unfold to not less than 4 different universities. A statue and a wall aid of the Goddess of Democracy have been faraway from Chinese language College of Hong Kong and Lingnan College, respectively; the administration of Metropolis College of Hong Kong introduced on Friday that it could take away a statue of the Goddess of Democracy from its personal campus; and one other statue was beforehand faraway from Hong Kong Polytechnic College (PolyU), in accordance with Nikkei Asia.
【Breaking】The New Goddess of Democracy in #CUHK was eliminated all of a sudden this morning. pic.twitter.com/Pb5ifo1lkq
— Carmen Lau 劉珈汶 (@carmenkamanlau) December 23, 2021
The erasure of the standing in campus follows the crack down on #HK’s commemoration of #JuneFourth #TiananmenCrackdown, and the additional kowtowing of native uni authorities to the nationwide safety regime. Issues that seen are gone, however what’s invisible can nonetheless stay.
— Eric Yan-ho Lai 黎恩灝 (@laiyanhoeric) December 24, 2021
How a candle can each defy and outline the darkness.
CUHK college students recreated the “Goddess of Democracy” statue within the type of candle mild, after authorities have eliminated the well-known statue from the Chinese language College of Hong Kong.
{Photograph} taken by Reuters reporter Jessie Pang pic.twitter.com/XFNJiulOp1
— Combat For Freedom. Stand With Hong Kong. 重光團隊 (@Stand_with_HK) December 26, 2021
On Monday, a brand new modification to the Nationwide Flag and Nationwide Emblem Ordinance kicked in, requiring Hong Kong faculties to conduct weekly flag-raising ceremonies and banning acts reminiscent of inverting the nationwide flag or improperly disposing of it. Native police have assisted faculties in coaching for the ceremonies, a few of which will probably be broadcast to college students in school rooms to keep away from COVID-related well being dangers. Whereas the rule applies to main and secondary faculties, native media reported that a number of universities have additionally held nationwide flag-raising ceremonies over the previous week. Some, together with HKU and PolyU, erected flagpoles mere days after eradicating their memorials. Involved by these and different adjustments for the reason that Nationwide Safety Legislation, hundreds of scholars have left Hong Kong faculties to hunt schooling overseas.
Barely over every week after @HKUniversity pulled down the Pillar of Disgrace, flag poles have been erected on its campus to show the Chinese language flag. pic.twitter.com/jBv0a4QSVn
— Rhoda Kwan (@rhodakykwan) January 3, 2022
Samuel Chu, founder and president of Marketing campaign for Hong Kong, stated that “eradicating the general public statues solely reveals the statue-shaped gap within the hearts [and] minds of all of us.” Reflecting on “the fragility of what we and those that got here earlier than us had constructed,” College of Kentucky professor Sharon Yam referred to as for resilience within the new yr, and Hongkongers are already heeding the message:
Resilience wants not be within the type of grandstanding: making do, grieving, caring for oneself and one another, and discovering hope in nooks and crevices are all methods during which we are able to protect ourselves and one another.
— Sharon Yam (任萃言) (@sharonyamsy) January 3, 2022
【離散港人】500港人英國雨中組「人鏈」撐香港新聞自由
(請留意本台稍後詳細報道) pic.twitter.com/q4rZM0Jwk9
— RFA 自由亞洲粵語 (@RfaCantonese) January 3, 2022
Nevertheless, residents proceed to be punished for their very own commemorations. On Tuesday, Chow Hold-tung, a barrister and former chief of the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance, was sentenced to fifteen months in jail for inciting an unauthorized meeting in 2021 to commemorate the victims of the Tiananmen bloodbath. Already in jail serving a 12-month sentence for organizing the 2020 Tiananmen vigil, Chow will serve 5 months of the brand new sentence concurrently with the outdated one, giving her a complete of twenty-two months behind bars. Candice Chau from the Hong Kong Free Press described how Chow, representing herself in courtroom, sacrificed her personal mitigation plea to share the voices of the Tiananmen bloodbath victims:
In her mitigation plea on Tuesday, Chow stated that whereas it had solely been slightly over six months for the reason that thirty second anniversary of the Tiananmen Bloodbath, “June 4th has turned rapidly from a baseline of conscience to a harmful redline.”
“Irrespective of how the courtroom justifies itself…it’s collaborating within the challenge of washing [away] June 4th,” the barrister stated.
The previous Alliance vice-chair then stated that there was “a necessity for the courtroom to listen to the tales of those that died on June 4th.”
Chow proceeded to learn out recollections from three households of victims within the Tiananmen Bloodbath, however was stopped by Chan earlier than she started studying out a fourth account, because the Justice of the Peace stated that the courtroom was not a spot for “expressions of political calls for.”
Upon listening to the Justice of the Peace, Chow stated that those that died within the Tiananmen Sq. crackdown have been “the true victims on this case,” and that “there was a better want for his or her voices to be heard by the courtroom than my very own private mitigation.” [Source]
BREAKING: @zouxingtong has simply been convicted this morning in Hong Kong of “inciting illegal meeting” for June 4, 2021.
That is her second #June4 conviction inside a month. On Dec 13, she was sentenced to 12 months in jail on illegal meeting costs associated to June 4, 2020— Kong Tsung-gan / 江松澗 (@KongTsungGan) January 4, 2022
Chow’s cost pertains to social media posts titled “Lighting a candle just isn’t a criminal offense: Stand one’s floor,” and her Ming Pao newspaper article titled “Candlelight carries the burden of conscience and the Hong Kong individuals persevere in telling the reality.”
— Jessie Pang (@JessiePang0125) January 4, 2022
The Justice of the Peace made a desk (the unique is in Chinese language) over Chow Hold-tung’s case, giving full proof that that is about speech crime https://t.co/f3DrBfgk2o
— Kris Cheng (@krislc) January 4, 2022
However the risk, which used to work in different courtroom hearings, didn’t not work completely this time. A minimum of two members in public gallery and on one in press gallery stood up and declared “I clapped” and left the courtroom.
— Xinqi Su 蘇昕琪 (@XinqiSu) January 4, 2022
13/ If there’s one factor the world ought to be taught from Chow’s case–the courts should not unbiased of Beijing. They ARE parts of it. The world has to confess that they’re devices of Beijing, and refuse to provide them any legitimacy or endorse the facade of rule of legislation in HK.
— Chung Ching Kwong (@chungchingkwong) January 4, 2022
Inciting to mild a candle
Hong Kong lawyer will get 15-month sentence for Fb ‘incitement’
Chow Hold-tung, 36, represented herself in courtroom, was accused of incitement with two articles revealed on FB and in an area newspaper, forward of June 4, 2021.https://t.co/t9yTMritTi— Charles Mok 莫乃光 (@charlesmok) January 4, 2022
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