ZCZC
BFF-39
HONGKONG-CHINA-POLITICS NEWSERIES
New York Times moving some Hong Kong staff over security law
HONG KONG, July 15, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – The New York Times on Wednesday
said it was moving its digital news hub from Hong Kong to South Korea
as a result of a national security law Beijing imposed on the city
last month and trouble obtaining visas.
It is the first major relocation by an international news
organisation since authoritarian China enacted its sweeping security
law late last month, ramping up its control over the semi-autonomous
city.
In an email to staff, Times executives said the new law “has created
a lot of uncertainty about what the new rules will mean to our
operation and our journalism”.
“We feel it is prudent to make contingency plans and begin to
diversify our editing staff around the region.”
The newspaper has had a regional headquarters in Hong Kong for
decades, overseeing Asia coverage and more recently helping to run the
newspaper’s 24-hour digital news operation alongside its two other
hubs in London and New York.
In its own news report on the move, the Times said it would move its
digital team — roughly one-third of its Hong Kong employees — to
Seoul over the next year.
The Times report said it had recently “faced challenges securing
work permits” for its staff in Hong Kong, something it said was
“commonplace in China but were rarely an issue in the former colony”.
China said law-abiding foreign journalists in Hong Kong “do not have
any need to worry” under the new law.
“We have an open and welcoming attitude toward foreign media
reporting in China,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at
a regular press briefing.
Earlier this year China expelled several journalists working for US
news organisations — including the Times — in a tit-for-tat spat
with Washington.
Some of the expelled Times journalists have already relocated to Seoul.
MORE/MRU/1849hrs
ZCZC
BFF-40
HONGKONG-CHINA-POLITICS NEWSERIES-TWO LAST
The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China said in a March report
that 82 percent of journalists surveyed said they had experienced
interference, harassment or violence while reporting in China over the
past year.
– Fading press hub? –
Hong Kong has been a regional nerve centre for international media
for decades thanks to its easy business environment and key civil
liberties that Beijing pledged to protect until 2047 under the
handover deal with Britain.
Alongside the New York Times, media organisations that have major
regional hubs in Hong Kong include AFP, CNN, the Wall Street Journal,
Bloomberg and the Financial Times.
But Beijing’s new security law has sent a chill through the city
because its broad wording criminalises some political speech and ramps
up Communist Party control.
One provision calls upon authorities to “strengthen the management”
of foreign news organisations.
Hong Kong’s local government — which answers to Beijing — has
shown little appetite to defend the media and the city has slid down
press freedom rankings in recent years.
Authorities are currently conducting a review of independent but
government-funded broadcaster RTHK following criticism it was overly
sympathetic to pro-democracy protests that shook the city last year,
an allegation the network denies.
Visas for foreign journalists have started to become subject to
political pressure.
In 2018, Financial Times journalist Victor Mallet was effectively
expelled after he hosted a talk at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of
Hong Kong (FCCHK) with a local independence advocate.
When China kicked out the American journalists earlier this year it
also announced they would not be allowed into Hong Kong, even though
the city is supposedly in charge of its own immigration policies. At
least one of the journalists was a permanent Hong Kong resident.
The Chinese foreign ministry on Wednesday said Hong Kong’s
government “has the right to make decisions regarding visa
applications in accordance with ‘One Country, Two Systems’ and the
Hong Kong Basic Law,” referring to the arrangement created by the
handover deal.
Earlier this month, the FCCHK wrote a letter to city leader Carrie
Lam seeking urgent clarification of how Beijing’s security law will
impact journalists in the city.
At a press conference last week, Lam was asked by a reporter whether
she could “100 percent guarantee” media freedoms.
Lam replied: “If the Foreign Correspondents’ Club or reporters in
Hong Kong can give me a 100 percent guarantee that they will not
commit any offences under this piece of national legislation, then I
can do this.”
BSS/AFP/MRU/1849hrs