Journalists face mounting strain in Chinese language territory with three unbiased media retailers closing since imposition of safety legislation.

Hong Kong’s chief Carrie Lam stated that she couldn’t settle for ideas that press freedom within the metropolis confronted “extinction”, as unbiased media outlet Citizen Information closed over security fears, days after a police raid on one other unbiased media outlet led to sedition prices towards senior workers.

“This morning I learn information about, due to the closure of on-line medium, press freedom in Hong Kong faces extinction … I simply can’t settle for that form of allegations,” Lam stated at her weekly press convention on Tuesday.

Citizen Information introduced its closure on Sunday, citing a “deteriorating” media setting within the former British colony and considerations in regards to the security of its journalists following the earlier week’s raid on rival publication Stand Information.

Beijing promised to respect Hong Kong’s freedoms, together with a free press, for a minimum of 50 years when it took management of the territory in 1997, however has been accused by Western nations and rights teams of eroding democracy and freedoms, significantly because the imposition of the nationwide safety legislation.

Authorities in Hong Kong and Beijing have repeatedly denied the accusations and say the safety legislation helped restore stability after mass protests in help of democracy in 2019.

The closure of Citizen Information means three publications have now closed because the laws was launched on the finish of June 2020.

The favored pro-democracy Apple Each day closed final 12 months after police raids on its workplaces and the arrest of key workers, together with founder Jimmy Lai who has been in jail since December 2020. The 74-year-old vocal critic of Beijing has been accused of “colluding with a overseas energy” – an offence beneath the safety legislation – and final week was slapped with an extra cost of sedition beneath a colonial-era legislation.

Two editors at Stand Information, an unbiased on-line publication, additionally face prices of sedition following a police raid final week that noticed the outlet’s belongings frozen. A number of different present and former senior editors and former board members had been arrested, together with common Cantopop singer Denise Ho.

The safety legislation criminalises what Beijing deems acts of “secession”, “subversion”, “terrorism”, and “overseas collusion to intervene within the metropolis’s affairs”.

Greater than 100 pro-democracy supporters have been arrested beneath the legislation to this point, and lots of others, together with elected pro-democracy politicians, have fled into exile.

Beijing has additionally moved to overtake the territory’s electoral system to make sure solely “patriots” are elected to workplace. The brand new members of the Legislative Council took their oath of allegiance in entrance of Lam on Monday, following December elections during which turnout plunged to a file low.

A safety guard stands beneath the Chinese language nationwide emblem earlier than newly-elected legislators take their oath on the Legislative Council in Hong Kong on Monday [File: Tyrone Siu/Reuters]