Hong Kong’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club has scrapped its annual human rights press awards just days before it was due to announce winners, out of fear it would violate the city’s wide-ranging national security law.
The decision sparked a number of resignations from the club’s press freedom committee, and public criticism from journalists and former award winners, who described the move as sad, and evidence that it could no longer serve in its mission to defend the press.
The FCC’s president, Keith Richburg, told its members in an email on Monday that the club was “suspending” the award pending further review.
“Over the last two years, journalists in Hong Kong have been operating under new ‘red lines’ on what is and is not permissible, but there remain significant areas of uncertainty and we do not wish unintentionally to violate the law,” it said.
“This was a very tough decision to reach. We explored a variety of other options, but could not find a feasible way forward.”
The FCC board held a meeting on Saturday, where the question of suspension was put forward, the Guardian understands, and some members shared legal advice they had obtained which said the club and individuals related to it would be at risk of being investigated by national security police if the awards went ahead. A majority of board members voted in favour of a suspension.
The national security law was imposed by Beijing in June 2020 following pro-democracy protests and criminalises what it terms acts of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces.
Hong Kong authorities have launched a comprehensive crackdown on the city’s once-free media in the two years since. Several major titles have been shuttered, journalists arrested, correspondents denied visas, and public broadcasters muzzled. A widely documented chilling effect has left the remaining media in fear of persecution and sources too afraid to speak on the record.
The Guardian also understands there was extensive discussion at the FCC board’s Saturday meeting of the club’s dual roles to support foreign correspondents in Hong Kong and as a business that operates a social venue in the city with more than 100 employees and a large number of non-journalist associate members.
Following a meeting of the club’s press freedom committee the next day, several members announced their resignation from the committee over the decision.
The Washington Post’s bureau chief, Shibani Mahtani, a member of press freedom committee for three years and also a board member, urged club members and others who benefited from it to “take a long hard look at the club they pay to belong to”.
“As a former winner and judge of the HRPA, I feel nothing but the deepest regret and do not stand by this decision,” she said, adding that the award was meaningful not just to Hong Kong journalists but those covering stories across the region, including in Afghanistan.
“[The suspension] is emblematic too of the self-censorship many institutions feel forced to subject themselves to in today’s Hong Kong, whether with or without their merits, and entirely indicative of how the national security law has changed the landscape for all,” she said.
“I have strongly recommended to the FCC president and its current board that we should seriously rethink the role of the press freedom committee, and the club as a whole. I believe it is no longer able to serve its core mission: to defend and promote the press.”
Some Hong Kong journalists lamented the decision as sad but unsurprising.
Timothy McLaughlin, a contributing writer to the Atlantic and former HRPA winner, said he was sad and angered to see the award cancelled. McLaughlin also noted it appeared the FCC had recently removed a statement of its “core mission” from the front page of its website.
Sum Lok-kei, an independent Hong Kong journalist who has reported for the Guardian, described the decision as self censorship and “an insult to the outlets [and] journalists that still work in HK, especially outlets which officials have named [or] sent letters to before”.
In its statement, the FCC said the decision “in no way reflects the FCC board’s view of the content of any of the entries or the work of the independent judges”.
“The FCC intends to continue promoting press freedom in Hong Kong, while recognising that recent developments might also require changes to our approach.”
The awards were due to be announced on world press freedom day, on 3 May.
