Hong Kong shut down another vocal pro-democracy news outlet on Wednesday, one of the last openly critical voices within the city after police raided the building, an event that marks China's latest efforts to dismantle the city's freedom.
Earlier this month, the opposition was shut out from local elections under a new law that placed all candidates on a loyalty test. Authorities also took down various monuments commemorating the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
Pro-Democracy Media Outlets
Hong Kong authorities have, again and again throughout the year, with the help of the central government in Beijing, worked to dismantle the city's pro-democracy movement. Activists have continued to flee the country and take refuge in other countries and those who failed to do so were locked up under the new National Security Law that was imposed 18 months ago.
A partner at The Asia Group and former U.S. consul general in Hong Kong and Macao, Kurt Tong, said that the city once allowed "open opposition and questioning of the government's core policies and legitimacy, any meaningful policy debates will now take place among a small circle of government loyalists," Fox News reported.
Citizens are already starting to forget the days when the former British colony was considered a bastion of freedom compared to other regions. In 1997, the city was returned to China, but it has endured an overhaul of its political system and a crackdown on political dissent. In 2019, authorities attempted to suppress anti-government sentiment that led to political strife that lasted for several months.
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The recent closure of Stand News included the arrests of current and former editors and board members of the online media outlet. On Wednesday, the agency issued a statement saying that its website and social media were no longer being updated and will be taken down shortly. It added that acting Editor-in-Chief Patrick Lam had resigned and that all employees were dismissed.
The news came after hundreds of Hong Kong national security police raided the media outlet's office and arrested six people, including senior staff, for suspected "seditious publications" offenses. The media outlet was set up in 2014 as a non-profit and is the most prominent of the remaining pro-democracy publications in Hong Kong, Aljazeera reported.
Hong Kong's Freedom
The recent raid raised concerns about media freedoms in the city as police released a statement that said they had a warrant authorizing them to "search and seize relevant journalistic materials."
The incident has prompted a response from the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken who, on Wednesday, called on Chinese and Hong Kong authorities to immediately release staff members and the pro-democracy media outlet.
In a statement referring to the People's Republic of China, Blinken said that the American federal government was calling on PRC and Hong Kong authorities to cease their targeting of Hong Kong's free and independent media.
The American official also added that by silencing the independent media outlets in the region, the PRC and local authorities were undermining Hong Kong's credibility and viability, Reuters reported.
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