The sentencing of Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai to two decades in jail on February 8 on fees of sedition and collusion with international forces brought about world outrage.
The response was once extra muted in Hong Kong, the place dissent has been stifled since Beijing imposed the draconian Nationwide Safety Regulation in 2020, following months of protests in 2019. A neighborhood safety regulation enacted in 2024 additional expanded the scope of town’s nationwide safety law.
Privately, some native reporters say Lai’s conviction can have restricted affect on their paintings. They have got already felt closely constrained through the protection rules and what they’re calling the “new normal” – an overarching nationwide safety equipment and tradition. Even if saddened, they weren’t altogether shocked on the severity of Lai’s sentence.
One journalist informed me they had been extra shaken through the sentences of as much as ten years that had been meted out to 6 senior Apple Day by day editors and writers for “just doing their jobs”.
Because the nationwide safety regulation, Hong Kong reporters’ jobs have concerned a substantial amount of dancing round moving obstacles as to what can and will’t be reported. Inevitably, this has supposed exercising larger self-censorship.
Nevertheless it was hoping “the Lai case will prove a watershed, allowing space for press freedom to widen step by step, so the media can fulfil its responsibilities more effectively”.
Alternatively, native reporters I spoke to described this place as naïve and wishful pondering, and stated the crimson traces aren’t any clearer now than prior to. Selina Cheng, chair of the Hong Kong Reporters Affiliation (HKJA), believes the restrictions on unfastened expression in Hong Kong cross some distance past a felony framework.
“If we call it a legal framework, it’s giving the system some kind of legitimacy,” Cheng informed me. “In reality, the way it operates is there is a lot of destruction of due process, creating an atmosphere of fear and anxiety in those working in industries of expression.”
Tai Po tragedy
Cheng was once one among a number of reporters I spoke to who pointed to the November 2025 fireplace which killed 168 folks in Tai Po’s Wang Fuk Court docket Property as a potent image of the present state of press freedom and freedom of speech in Hong Kong.
Within the rapid aftermath, native and world reporters interviewed sufferers and reported broadly on suspected corruption and loss of oversight of creating works at the web site. However citizens and different doable interviewees quickly turned into reluctant to talk to newshounds following the arrests of people that had posted feedback on-line.
A jail van sporting Apple Day by day founder Jimmy Lai arrives at West Kowloon Magistrates’ Court docket for sentencing, February 9 2026.
EPA/Would possibly James
A scholar who began a petition for an unbiased inquiry was once arrested – after which not too long ago expelled from his college simply weeks from commencement, although he hasn’t been charged.
“In the past, you’d have lots of commentary in the media after an incident like this,” they defined. “There’d be legal scholars, experts, people from all different sectors. But now, the universities don’t allow people to comment and articles are spiked or censored, so it’s hard to raise and maintain public concern.”
Snitch tradition
The journalist spoke of a machine that extends past the felony framework of the nationwide safety regulation that restricts speech, during the regulate of public opinion and a “snitch culture” that weaponises proceedings.
A Hong Kong police nationwide safety hotline was once introduced in November 2020; through June 2025, town’s safety leader stated it had gained greater than 920,000 studies. Public our bodies and investment organisations additionally steadily obtain proceedings about platforming of investment teams or folks appeared to be pro-democracy or supportive of the 2019 protests.
Final October, a public venue cancelled a play written through Candace Chong, a number one playwright who was once been vocal about censorship. The frame that manages the Xiqu Centre, a part of the West Kowloon Cultural District, stated it had gained proceedings that the display – which depicts a love triangle between 3 males – defamed Hong Kong.
There are indicators the “media failure” is already affecting governance. In January, the federal government presented a arguable seat belt regulation requiring all bus passengers to buckle up whilst seated, handiest to shelve it 5 days later. The invoice had gained little scrutiny in Hong Kong’s now opposition-free legislature.
“It’s really unthinkable for a government to push out a bill, get it rubber-stamped by the legislature, and then withdraw it because they suddenly realise people are unhappy or the legislative details haven’t been thought through,” the HKJA’s Cheng informed me. “It shows how the government misjudged public sentiment. This can be attributed to how the media isn’t free any more.”
