On World Press Freedom Day, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Hong Kong reaffirms its resolute support of journalists and unwavering commitment to defend press freedom, both in Hong Kong and around the world.

Today, we recognise and celebrate the vital role of the global news media in combating disinformation and keeping societies informed, pushing back against threats to fact-based discourse from AI-generated falsehoods and populist political movements.

We also mourn our colleagues who have lost their lives in the line of duty around the world. Last year was the deadliest year on record since the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) began collecting data more than 30 years ago. At least 124 journalists and media workers were killed in 2024, with 85 killed in the Israel-Gaza war alone.

Closer to home, the FCC’s recently published Press Freedom Survey reflects the pressure faced by working journalists in Hong Kong, with 62% of respondents saying that their working environment as a journalist has changed for the worse since we conducted our last survey.

May 3 acts as a reminder for Hong Kong’s government officials to respect their stated commitment to press freedom, which is guaranteed in the city’s Basic Law.

The FCC will continue to support journalists and advocate for press freedom in Hong Kong so that journalists can carry out their work without fear or favour.

“A free press is not a luxury. A free press is at the absolute core of equitable development” — James Wolfensohn, former president of the World Bank.

An anonymous survey of the FCC’s Correspondent and Journalist members reflects the damaged sentiment that many working journalists in Hong Kong are facing.

The results of the survey, the third that the FCC has conducted in the last four years, raise concerns about the working environment that our members and others in the media industry face.

Of the 69 respondents, 43 (62%) said that their working environment as a journalist in Hong Kong had changed for the worse since July 2023, the time of the last press freedom survey. The National Security Law, its related trials, and the perceived exodus of international news organisations were mentioned as reasons for the change.

Respondents also noted that their sources have become more concerned about sharing their own opinions, with 44 (64%) saying that their sources are less willing to be quoted or discuss sensitive subjects.

Journalists are cautious about their own writing as well, with 45 (65%) saying they had self-censored in the last 18 months, and 12 (18%) saying they had self-censored “considerably”.

Ten respondents (16%) reported facing minor interference in their reporting, and one noted significant interference.

The perception of the media environment is also noteworthy, with four people (6%) saying they are “very concerned,” and 36 people (52%) being “slightly concerned” about the possibility of arrest or prosecution over their reporting or opinion articles or work they have edited.

While only one person reported experiencing digital surveillance and two reported physical surveillance, 62 (90%) said they were concerned about digital and physical surveillance.

The FCC supports journalists’ fundamental right to conduct their work freely and without fear of intimidation or harassment.

We will continue our proactive engagement with relevant authorities to safeguard press freedom in the city in order to make sure that Hong Kong remains a thriving hub for journalism and business in the region.

Read the full results of the survey in the latest edition of the club’s magazine, The Correspondent.

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Hong Kong is concerned by the repeated cancellations of the Hong Kong Journalists Association’s (HKJA) annual fundraising gala by the host venues, and their implications for press freedom in the city.

HKJA is a non-profit organisation that advocates press freedom and supports journalists and journalism in Hong Kong.

If this trend of cancellations were to continue, it risks tarnishing Hong Kong’s image as an international business and financial centre.

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Hong Kong is urging Cambodian authorities to reverse their decision to deny re-entry to British journalist Gerald Flynn and to immediately facilitate his return to Cambodia so that he can continue to do his important work. 

Flynn, an investigative and environmental journalist, has lived and reported in Cambodia since 2019, and held a valid work permit and multiple-entry business visa. Despite this, he was denied re-entry to Cambodia on January 5 while returning from a brief visit to Thailand. Authorities alleged his visa was “fake,” but did not provide Flynn further details. Cambodian immigration officials also informed Flynn that he would never be allowed to return to Cambodia because he had been placed on a “blacklist” on November 25, 2024.

Flynn’s exclusion appears to have been an act of retaliation for appearing as a source in a France24 documentary three days earlier. The documentary questioned the efficacy of Cambodian carbon offsetting projects. Prior to appearing in the documentary, Flynn’s reporting had uncovered environmental crimes and the destruction of natural resources across the country, most recently for U.S. environmental news outlet Mongabay.

Since 2022, Cambodia has fallen nine places in the Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index because of such heavy-handed intimidation and retaliation tactics. Cambodian journalist Mech Dara was jailed for almost a month last fall in an apparent attempt to silence one of the country’s most prominent reporters. His arrest followed the forced closure in 2023 of Voice of Democracy, the country’s leading independent media outlet, at which Dara had covered the troubling rise of industrial-scale scamming compounds across Cambodia.

The FCC supports all reporters’ right to cover stories without fear of harassment or arrest. We urge Cambodian authorities to reverse course and permit Gerald Flynn to re-enter the country.

Four years after the military seized power and ousted the democratically elected government in Myanmar, The Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Hong Kong continues to be alarmed and deeply concerned at the deteriorating conditions for journalists and media workers there.

Since February 2021, the military junta has cracked down on Myanmar’s media in an effort to silence any reporting critical of the junta and its actions. Regime authorities have revoked the operating licenses of independent news outlets, banned the use of satellite dishes and instituted a series of partial and complete internet shutdowns. 

Individual journalists have also been harassed, detained, tortured and sentenced to jail terms. According to the Independent Press Council Myanmar, as of 25 January 2025, 43 journalists/media workers are still imprisoned.  All were taken into custody on anti-state allegations and many were denied legal representation. 

The FCC reiterates its condemnation of the targeting, threatening, detention, torturing and killing of journalists and media workers. We call on the Myanmar military regime to cease violence, release all those unjustly detained, and to uphold freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive and impart information.

Journalism is not a crime, and media workers should be allowed to carry out their work without fear of threats to their safety and well being.

As the world marks the one-year anniversary of the Israel-Hamas war, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Hong Kong remembers the scores of journalists killed or injured in the ongoing conflict. The FCC calls on all parties to protect the journalists who are covering the war with great courage and under extremely difficult conditions.

Of the more than 42,000 people killed since the war began, at least 128 of them were journalists and media workers, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (“CPJ”), making this the deadliest conflict for journalists since the group began gathering data in 1992. They include 123 Palestinians and three Lebanese, as well as two Israelis who were killed when the war began with Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel.

Though Israel denies targeting media workers, CPJ has concluded that at least five of the Palestinian and Lebanese journalists who were killed were directly targeted by Israeli forces in violation of international law.

The killings, along with censorship, arrests, internet disruptions, the blocking of independent media outlets from entering the Gaza Strip, the destruction of newsrooms and other media infrastructure, and the displacement of Gaza journalists and media workers, have severely hampered coverage of a war that threatens to spread across the region.

The Club expresses its deepest condolences to the colleagues and loved ones of the journalists and other innocent victims who have been killed, as well as the journalists whose families have been killed in the conflict they are covering.

The Club further calls on all parties to ensure the safety of journalists on the ground in Israel and Gaza. Journalists are civilians who should not be targeted, and their ability to freely and safely do their jobs is vital for understanding the conflict and working toward its end.

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Hong Kong is calling for the release of Mech Dara, a Cambodian investigative reporter who was arrested this week in an apparent attempt to silence one of the country’s leading journalists.

Dara was arrested by military police on Sept. 30 at a highway toll booth while driving with a relative to Phnom Penh. Officials initially said little about his arrest other than confirming his detention at an undisclosed location. On Tuesday, he was charged with criminal incitement over social media posts he made in September and sent to pretrial detention by a Phnom Penh court.

The court objected to photos Dara posted on social media showing contrasting images of quarrying activity at a revered mountain in southeastern Cambodia. Local officials denounced the post, said there was no excavation at the site, and accused him of inciting “social disorder,” which can be prosecuted under a criminal incitement statute often abused as a tool of intimidation and suppression.

Dara’s arrest follows last year’s forced closure of Cambodia’s leading independent media outlet, Voice of Democracy. Dara was a reporter for VOD, where he helped uncover the rise of cyber-scam compounds in Cambodia whose bosses often use slave labor to defraud people around the world. The reporting earned him international renown, including an award from the U.S. Department of State.

Cambodia’s use of such heavy-handed tactics to intimidate journalists and shutter news outlets has sharply curtailed independent news coverage and prompted the country to slide precipitously in global press freedom indexes. The FCC supports all reporters’ right to cover stories without fear of harassment or arrest and urges Cambodian authorities to release Dara from prison.

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Hong Kong is extremely concerned by reports that journalists in Hong Kong have been harassed and threatened online and offline because of their work.

The Hong Kong Journalists Association has reported that journalists, along with their family and associates, have been subjects of a targeted campaign of harassment in recent months. These bullying messages are illegal, and should be condemned not only for the violence they seek to inflict, but also for their threats to the freedom of the press as it is guaranteed as a fundamental right in Hong Kong.

We advocate for journalists’ right to continue to carry out their work unhindered, free of harassment and danger, and we stand in solidarity with all journalists in Hong Kong who seek to work and live in a safe environment.

We note that reports have been made to the authorities and ask that they urgently investigate these reported threats to ensure the safety of journalists working in the city.

Today, two Hong Kong journalists have been convicted of a crime for articles they published.

Although sentencing is adjourned until 26 September 2024 and the defendants have been granted court bail until that date, there still remains a risk that Chung Pui-kuen and Patrick Lam might serve prison sentences for their roles in reporting, editing and publishing interviews, features and opinion pieces. Of the 17 articles the court considered, many had been taken down and only five remained active at the time of their arrest, but today the Wan Chai District Court ruled that 11 had “seditious intentions”.

Chung Pui-kuen was the ex-chief editor and Patrick Lam the acting chief editor of non-profit digital news outlet Stand News, which closed down in December 2021 after it was raided by over 200 national security police officers.

This verdict will send shockwaves through Hong Kong newsrooms, as well as international news organisations with bureaus in the city, as they seek to understand whether their day-to-day operations could be in violation of Hong Kong law.    This case has long been regarded by many as a litmus test for press freedom in the city. The FCC will further assess the details of this verdict and its implications for our operations. Doubtlessly, news organisations throughout Hong Kong will be doing exactly the same.

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Hong Kong is concerned by reports that Bloomberg journalist Haze Fan has been refused a visa to work at the organisation’s Hong Kong bureau.

Fan, a Chinese national, is a qualified and experienced journalist who has also worked for Reuters, CBS News and CNBC in her 15-year career. According to multiple reports, Fan was detained by Chinese authorities in late 2020 and arrested in July 2021 on suspicion of committing crimes endangering national security. She was released in early 2022 without charge.

The FCC has reached out to the Immigration Department to ask that they improve transparency in respect of any denial of work visas in this and in other similar cases. Whilst we request an urgent review of this decision, a proper explanation for any future denial of work visas or entry into Hong Kong by journalists is a necessary improvement to the system, and would positively impact the public and international perception of Hong Kong as a business centre.