HKJA|記協

The Hong Kong Journalists Association (香港記者協會, "記協"; HKJA) is the city's principal trade union for working journalists. Founded in 1968, it is an affiliate of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and a member of the global free-expression network IFEX, and for more than half a century it was the main independent voice defending Hong Kong's press — its stated purpose being "to enhance press freedom and the integrity of news coverage" and to improve journalists' working conditions.

Through the decades the HKJA became the institution that measured the freedom it defended. It ran an annual Press Freedom Index survey of journalists and the public, co-organised the regional Human Rights Press Awards (with the Foreign Correspondents' Club and Amnesty International), published yearly reports on the state of the media, and provided legal and practical support to reporters facing arrest, assault or intimidation while covering the news.

A union under siege

Since the 2019 protests and the 2020 National Security Law, the HKJA has itself become a target of the crackdown it documents — part of the wider story told on the Press Freedom under Siege hub.

A shrinking membership. As the newsrooms that employed its members were shut down — Apple Daily, Stand News, Citizen News — and journalists left the profession or the city, membership and finances collapsed. By June 2024 the association reported just 338 members, and successive chairs have warned of severe financial strain.
Smears and official pressure. State-affiliated media and senior officials have repeatedly attacked the group, questioning its legitimacy and representativeness. In June 2024 the Security Bureau publicly admonished newly elected committee members, and two nominees withdrew.
The Human Rights Press Awards, abandoned. The awards the HKJA had co-run for decades were effectively ended in 2022 after the FCC pulled out, citing legal risk under the security law.

Its chairs, prosecuted and pressured

The people who have led the HKJA trace the pressure on the whole profession:

Ronson Chan (陳朗昇), chair 2021–2024 and a former deputy assignment editor at Stand News, was arrested in September 2022 while reporting on a homeowners' meeting in Mong Kok and charged with obstructing a police officer who had demanded his ID. Convicted in 2023 and sentenced to 5 days in jail, he lost his appeal on 29 May 2026 and was jailed immediately, later taking the case to the Court of Final Appeal. RSF called his imprisonment "a new low for press freedom in Hong Kong." He had declined to seek re-election in 2024, saying the combined attacks on him and the HKJA had grown too damaging.
Selina Cheng (鄭嘉如), a Wall Street Journal reporter, was elected chair in July 2024 — and fired by the WSJ days later, having said her employer pressured her not to stand. She has led the association since.

The HKJA continues to issue statements defending reporters — in October 2026 insisting that "reporting is not sedition" after an online journalist's arrest (see Press Freedom under Siege) — even as its own survival is in question.

Sources

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

HKJA|記協

A union under siege

Its chairs, prosecuted and pressured

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