Is there a free press in Hong Kong? Foreign correspondents once worked in Hong Kong because it was the only region that allowed free media in China. All changed with the National Security Law imposed in 2020.
How have these correspondents reacted to the government’s crackdown? What does the future hold for journalists in Hong Kong after the shutdown of outstanding Hong Kong news outlets and the arrest of journalists due to their “seditious” materials?
The Foreign Correspondents’ Club Hong Kong (FCCHK) was founded in 1943 in Japan-occupied China. It relocated to Hong Kong in 1949 after the Nationalists retreated to Taiwan and Mao’s Communists created the PRC. Hong Kong was an important hub for correspondents covering the Korean and Vietnam wars.
The Foreign Correspondents’ Club is a pioneer in encouraging press freedom in Asia. In 1996 the FCC created the Human Rights Press Awards, a not-for-profit organization based in Hong Kong to recognize top rights-related reporting from around Asia. The 25th Awards in 2021 may have been the last awarded because the 2022 awards have been canceled.
On April 25, Keith Richburg, the president of the FCC stated that the Awards were suspended because they might “unintentionally” violate the National Security laws.
Eight committee members resigned informing the club that they would be leaving Hong Kong this summer. Some of them expressed their anger with the club’s decision to suspend the awards on social media . One of the resigners and a former prize winner, Shibani Mahtani expressed her regret over the decision in a Twitter post:
Yesterday I resigned from the FCC's press freedom committee after three years on the committee, two of them as a board member. As a former winner and judge of the HRPA, I feel nothing but the deepest regret and do not stand by this decisionhttps://t.co/fAvwzSDJv3
— Shibani Mahtani (@ShibaniMahtani) April 25, 2022
Stand News, one of the last independent news sources in Hong Kong, was forced to close. Stand News would have won several awards according to the Hong Kong Free Press which obtained the list and reported on it on Twitter:
The Future of FCC and Human Rights Press Awards in Hong Kong
The FCC’s decision suspending the Human Rights Press Awards is a way for the club to survive and protect its members and free journalism from the government’s threats.
Journalists in Hong Kong have worked under the “red lines,” identifying what is permissible, according to the president of the FCC Keith Richberg.
In a message to his members, Richberg stated, “the FCC intends to continue promoting press freedom in Hong Kong while recognising that recent developments might also require changes to our approach.”
The Human Rights Press Awards will continue because the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University (ASU) has announced that they will take over as the host starting next year on May 3- World Press Freedom Day.
According to Keith Richberg, the FCC was approached by ASU as soon as the news of the cancellation came out. The Human Rights Press Awards “will now be in safe hands,” said Richberg.
