Taipei, September 25, 2023—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a Hong Kong court’s decision on Monday to sentence Ronson Chan, head of the city’s largest journalists’ group, to 5 days in prison on charges of obstructing a police officer.
“The 5-day sentence issued to journalist Ronson Chan is another deliberate humiliation to the freedom of the press in Hong Kong by authorities,” said Iris Hsu, CPJ’s China representative. “The court decision gives grounds to Hong Kong police’s harassment of journalists who are simply doing their job and shows how intolerant the Hong Kong government is towards the press.”
On Monday, a court in Hong Kong convicted Chan, a reporter for the independent online news outlet Channel C HK and chairperson of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, of obstructing a police officer while reporting in 2022. He was granted bail pending an appeal.
Chan was arrested and accused of obstructing police officers and public disorder while covering a residents’ meeting in Mong Kok on September 7, 2022.
CPJ’s email to the Hong Kong police did not immediately receive a response.
China was the world’s second-worst jailer of journalists, with at least 43 journalists behind bars, at the time of CPJ’s December 1, 2022, prison census.