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Media Freedom Coalition expresses concern over deteriorating media freedom in Hong Kong – JURIST

The Media Freedom Coalition (MFC) released a statement on Friday calling attention to media freedom in Hong Kong. The MFC is a partnership of 50 countries formed in 2019 that advocates media freedom and the safety of journalists.The statement expresses the MFC’s deep concern at the “Hong Kong and mainland Chinese authorities’ continued attacks on freedom of the press and their suppression of independent local media in Hong Kong”. As per the statement, the prosecution of media workers for sedition has increased since the imposition of the National Security Law in 2020, leading many to self-censor. Additionally, the statement said, the use of sedition laws to suppress journalism “undermines Hong Kong’s autonomy” and people’s “rights as guaranteed in the Basic Law”.Friday marked the second anniversary of the closure of Stand News, a  non-profit digital news outlet, following a national security police raid and arrest of seven of its members on suspicion of breaching the colonial-era Crimes Ordinance by “conspiring to publish seditious publications”. US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, condemned the arrests and closure and urged authorities to cease targeting free and independent media. The same year, pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily also faced raids and arrests, drawing similar criticism from US and EU officials. In 2021, BBC World News was banned following claims of serious violations of Chinese rules and regulations. In 2022, CitizenNews announced its closure due to concerns for the safety of its reporters.The National Security Law has been internationally criticized for restricting autonomy and penalizing dissent. Massive protests against the Law culminated in crackdowns by police. Since the inception of the Law, Hong Kong’s score on the Hong Kong Journalist’s Association Press Freedom Index dropped four times in four consecutive years. The Hong Kong Watch opined in 2022 that the crackdown on media led to the near-eradication of press freedom in the region. In 2023, the Hong Kong Journalist Association and Reporters Without Borders condemned the authorities’ harassment of journalists.MFC further called on the Hong Kong and Chinese authorities in its statement to “abide by their international human rights commitments” and to “preserve Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy”.