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📰 Press Freedom under Siege|新聞自由淪陷

Related: ✊ Faces of the Crackdown | ⚖️ Jimmy Lai | 📕 Book Censorship under the NSL | 🕯️ Tiananmen Vigil

For a generation Hong Kong had one of the freest presses in Asia — a noisy, competitive media market protected by the Basic Law's guarantee of press freedom, where Reporters Without Borders once ranked the city 18th in the world (2002). In the space of five years that was dismantled. The two biggest independent newsrooms were raided and shut, their editors jailed; a colonial-era sedition law was revived and then sharpened into a weapon carrying years in prison; and by 2025 RSF had dropped Hong Kong to 140th of 180, into the "red zone" of "very serious" repression for the first time, placing it alongside mainland China. This page gathers that record — the outlets destroyed, the journalists prosecuted, and the laws used to do it — and links to the newsrooms this archive has preserved.

Since 2020 the Hong Kong government has prosecuted at least 28 journalists, eight of whom were in custody as of 2025 (Reporters Without Borders). "At RSF, we have never seen such a sharp and rapid deterioration in the press-freedom record of any country or territory."

A free press, dismantled year by year

YearWhat happened
2020The National Security Law takes effect (30 June). On 10 Aug, 200 police raid the Apple Daily newsroom and arrest founder Jimmy Lai under the NSL.
2021Apple Daily is destroyed: a second raid (17 June) arrests five executives and freezes the company's assets; starved of funds, the paper prints its last edition on 24 June — 1 million copies. RTHK, the public broadcaster, is brought to heel under a new civil-servant director: programmes are deleted and archives pulled. On 29 Dec, police raid Stand News, arresting senior staff; the outlet closes the same day.
2022Citizen News, citing the "sword" hanging over the industry, closes pre-emptively on 4 Jan. The FCC suspends its Human Rights Press Awards rather than risk breaking the law. Independent outlets shut or go quiet across the board.
2024Hong Kong's homegrown Article 23 law — the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance (23 Mar) — raises the penalty for sedition from 2 years to 7 (10 with an "external force"). In the first journalist sedition convictions since 1997, two Stand News editors are jailed (see below). RFA closes its Hong Kong bureau, citing the new law.
2025RSF's World Press Freedom Index puts Hong Kong at 140/180, its lowest ever score, in the "red zone" for the first time.
2026Prosecutions reach independent online media: an outlet operator and an activist are arrested for "seditious acts" over filming a public commemoration (see below).

The two newsrooms that were destroyed

Apple Daily (蘋果日報)

The city's largest pro-democracy tabloid, founded by Jimmy Lai in 1995. Raided under the National Security Law in August 2020 and again in June 2021, when its assets were frozen and five senior executives arrested; unable to pay staff or suppliers, it published its final edition on 24 June 2021, a million copies snapped up across the city. Lai and several editors remain on trial or convicted in the long-running NSL case. The paper's full run is preserved here: Apple Daily and its publications & special editions; Lai's own story is on the Jimmy Lai page.

Stand News (立場新聞)

The flagship of Hong Kong's post-Apple independent media, raided and closed on 29 December 2021. In the first use of the colonial sedition offence against journalists since the 1997 handover, chief editor Chung Pui-kuen and acting chief editor Patrick Lam were convicted on 29 August 2024 — the judge ruling that 11 of 17 articles (mostly opinion pieces and interviews with democrats) had "seditious intent" — and sentenced on 26 September 2024: Chung to 21 months, Lam to 11 months (released immediately on medical grounds and time served over the two-year trial). The parent company, Best Pencil, was convicted and fined. Press-freedom groups called it a watershed: "journalists jailed for doing their job." Stand News's archive is preserved here: Stand News.

The newest front — criminalising the reporter (2026)

On 1 October 2026, police arrested Tang Ho-wing (37), who runs the online outlet Boom News (some 200,000 followers), and activist Lee Ying-chi (58), for allegedly acting "with seditious intent" under the 2024 security law — an offence carrying up to seven years. The arrests stemmed from an 31 August 2026 gathering outside Prince Edward MTR station, where people were found "holding bouquets and shouting slogans" to mark the 2019 Prince Edward incident — the night riot police stormed a train and beat passengers, an event the authorities now call a "manipulated lie." Tang had posted video from the scene.

Police said those involved were "suspected of spreading false information and attacking government with lies" to "incite hatred." The Hong Kong Journalists Association responded that "reporting is not sedition," warning that journalists now face arrest simply for covering public events; the Committee to Protect Journalists called it "the latest sign of the criminalisation of journalism" and demanded the pair's release (HKFP). The case marks the frontier moving from the big newsrooms to a lone operator with a phone and a following.

The weapons

  • The colonial sedition law. A dormant offence under the old Crimes Ordinance (ss. 9–10), untouched since the 1960s, was revived from 2020 to prosecute speech, slogans, children's books and journalism alike.
  • Article 23 / the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance (2024). Hong Kong's own security law, enacted 23 March 2024, re-enacted and expanded sedition — raising the maximum from two years to seven (ten where an "external force" is involved) and widening what counts as seditious intent.
  • The National Security Law (2020). Beijing-imposed; the basis for the Apple Daily collusion case and the detention of Jimmy Lai.

Together these turned editorial judgement — which article to run, which gathering to film — into potential evidence of a crime. The same tools reach the archive's pages on book censorship, the Tiananmen vigil and Glory to Hong Kong.

The press this archive preserves

The crackdown did not only close newsrooms; it scattered them. Some were destroyed, some closed pre-emptively, some moved overseas, and some carry on in exile or online. This archive holds:

OutletStatusPreserved here
Apple Daily 蘋果日報Forced shut (2021)Apple Daily|蘋果日報
Stand News 立場新聞Raided & shut (2021)Stand News|立場新聞
RFA Cantonese 自由亞洲粵語HK bureau closed (2024)RFA Cantonese|自由亞洲電台粵語組
inmediahk.net 獨立媒體Under pressure, onlineInmediahk|獨立媒體
Passion Times 熱血時報OnlinePassion Times | 熱血時報
MadDog Daily 癲狗日報OnlineMad Dog Daily|癲狗日報
The Witness 法庭線Court reporting, onlineThe Witness| 法庭線
Photon Media 光傳媒In exile, onlinePhoton Media|光傳媒
Hong Kong Free PressStill publishingHong Kong Free Press
FCC 外國記者會Self-censoringFCC|香港外國記者會
HK Journalists Association 記協Under pressureHKJA|記協

Help preserve the record

Hong Kong's free press is being written out of the city's own memory — newsrooms deleted, archives pulled offline, reporting recast as crime. If you have saved articles, front pages, broadcasts, newsletters or newsroom records from any of these outlets — or others not yet listed — they belong in the record before they vanish. See how to contribute, or open an issue on our archive. Court reporting on the journalist trials is tracked by The Witness.

Sources

香港中文報道 (Chinese-language HK coverage):

Backlinks