Hong Kong is ‘descending further into authoritarianism’

Chung Pui-kuen, the former chief editor of Hong Kong's now-shuttered outlet Stand News, walks outside on bail after he was found guilty in a landmark sedition trial under a colonial-era law, in Wanchai District Court in Hong Kong on August 29, 2024.

Chung Pui-kuen, the former chief editor of Hong Kong's now-shuttered outlet Stand News, walks outside on bail after he was found guilty in a landmark sedition trial under a colonial-era law, in Wanchai District Court in Hong Kong on August 29, 2024. (Photo:AP/Billy H.C. Kwok)

The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned Thursday’s conviction by a Hong Kong court of former Stand News editors Patrick Lam and Chung Pui-kuen on charges of conspiracy to publish seditious publications and called on authorities to stop using anti-state charges against journalists.

The ruling showed that Hong Kong is “descending further into authoritarianism,” CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Beh Lih Yi told AFP.

China was the world’s worst jailer of journalists, with 44 behind bars, in CPJ’s 2023 prison census. Those held include CPJ’s 2021 Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award winner Jimmy Lai, founder of the shuttered pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, who has been behind bars since 2020 and is facing life imprisonment if convicted of conspiring to collude with foreign forces.

In the United States, CPJ welcomed a Wednesday guilty verdict in the killing of Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Jeff German.

German, a veteran reporter who covered organized crime and local politics, was found stabbed to death on September 2, 2022, outside his home in Las Vegas, Nevada.

“While Wednesday’s ruling will not bring Jeff German back to his family, friends, and colleagues, the conviction sends an important message that the killing of journalists will not be tolerated,” said CPJ U.S., Canada, and Caribbean Program Coordinator Katherine Jacobsen. “It is vital that the murder of journalists should be taken seriously and perpetrators held accountable.”

Global press freedom updates

Spotlight

European Union High Representative Josep Borrell speaks during a media conference in Brussels on June 26, 2024. (Photo: AP/Virginia Mayo)

CPJ and 59 other organizations called on European leaders earlier this week to suspend the Israel / EU Association Agreement, take action against the Israeli authorities’ unprecedented killing of journalists, and consider adopting targeted sanctions against IDF officials and others responsible.

The Association Agreement intends to provide an “appropriate legal and institutional framework for political dialogue and economic cooperation between the EU and Israel” and includes human rights as a core component.

The letter was sent to the EU High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, ahead of Thursday’s informal meeting of foreign ministers.

“I think the European Union has not to have taboos in order to use our toolbox, in order to make humanitarian law respected,” Borrell told media earlier today.

Read the letter.

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