'We cannot give up': Hong Kong journalists navigate fear, surveillance, and shrinking space
Hong Kong’s government on Friday slammed foreign media and press freedom groups, rejecting claims of a crackdown on press freedom as “slander” after jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai was awarded a free speech prize in Germany. Press freedom in the city has sharply declined since a 2020 National Security Law clamped down on dissent. Journalists face visa denials, surveillance, self-censorship and legal threats, while independent outlets struggle to survive.
Issued on: 03/05/2026 - 08:56Modified: 03/05/2026 - 08:57
9 min Reading time Share By: Natasha LI
In a defiant statement slamming foreign media on Friday, Hong Kong accused an “anti-China organisation” of attempts to “sugarcoat” the “criminal acts” of imprisoned media tycoon Jimmy Lai, who was awarded Thursday a Freedom of Speech Prize by Germany’s Deutsche Welle.
In the same statement, authorities dismissed Reporters Without Borders’ latest Press Freedom Index as biased, saying it was being used to “smear” Hong Kong. The index now ranks the city 140th globally, down from 18th when it was first published in 2002.
Once widely seen as a beacon of free expression in Asia, Hong Kong has increasingly become a place where journalism itself can carry legal risk.
And that reality is no longer limited to local reporters.
Earlier this week, RSF revealed that a French journalist had been denied entry to Hong Kong, detained at the airport and deported back to Paris – the first publicly documented case of its kind involving a foreign correspondent.
Detained and deported
For Antoine Védeilhé, a former FRANCE 24 China correspondent now working on a documentary for France Télévisions, the case marked a turning point.
He has reported across Asia for nearly a decade and covered Hong Kong extensively since 2016, including the 2019 pro-democracy protests. Until recently, he says entering the city had never been a problem.
That changed in November 2025.
“At passport control, they stopped me immediately,” he said. “They took me into an immigration room, kept me there for three hours, interrogated me, searched all my belongings, and carried out a full body search.”
Read more'Curtain falls on Hong Kong press freedom': Jimmy Lai prison sentence sparks outcry
He was then escorted directly to a flight back to Paris.
“They gave no explanation and no documents. Nothing,” he said. “Only that it was for immigration reasons.”
Later, through sources in Hong Kong’s immigration department, he was told he had been flagged as a “foreign agent” – a label commonly used in cases linked to national security concerns.
The following day, his employer received an anonymous email warning against broadcasting his documentary, “Hong Kong ne répond plus” (Hong Kong Is No Longer Answering), which examines the city’s political transformation under Beijing’s tightening control.
“It was clearly meant to intimidate us,” Védeilhé said. “They were suggesting that even in France, the National Security Law could apply.”
His cameraman, who was allowed entry, was followed by plainclothes officers from the moment he arrived at his hotel.
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“They didn’t try to hide it,” he said. “It was exactly like mainland China.”
Fearing for the safety of sources, the team cancelled all planned interviews.
“This is how reporting stops,” he said. “People won’t meet you if it puts them at risk.”
Visa weaponisation
“What Antoine was subjected to was unprecedented, even among foreign correspondents,” said Aleksandra Bielakowska, advocacy manager for Asia-Pacific at RSF.
While at least 13 journalists have been denied visas, refused renewals or barred from entering Hong Kong in recent years, she says this case marks an escalation.
“This is really an intensification because it is the first time we see this scale of transnational repression reaching foreign journalists in Europe,” she said.
Bielakowska said the evidence strongly suggests the operation was coordinated by national security police.
“They had a file on him, with his photo, identifying him as an agent. They knew his sources, they knew who he was working with, and his contacts were also harassed,” she said.
She added that Hong Kong is increasingly adopting the same pressure tactics long used by Beijing against foreign media – visa refusals, surveillance and intimidation.
“China has used visa weaponisation for years,” she said. “But what is happening now in Hong Kong is different because it is no longer just about refusing access. It is about creating fear everywhere.”
She says the message to journalists is clear: reporting critically on Hong Kong can carry consequences even outside the city.
‘Criminalisation of journalism itself’
Hong Kong’s press freedom crisis accelerated after Beijing imposed the sweeping National Security Law in June 2020, following the mass pro-democracy protests of 2019.
Watch moreHong Kong: A summer of discontent
For many journalists, the decisive moment came two months later, when police raided Apple Daily and arrested its founder Jimmy Lai.
“That was the message,” Bielakowska said. “If you keep reporting, you will face the same charges.”
Since then, independent media outlets including Apple Daily, Stand News and Citizen News have shut down, while dozens of journalists have been arrested, prosecuted or forced into exile.
Earlier this year, Hong Kong courts handed Lai what was described as the harshest sentence – 20 years – ever imposed on a journalist under national security charges –effectively condemning the 78-year-old publisher, imprisoned since 2020, to spend the rest of his life behind bars.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least eight journalists are currently imprisoned in Hong Kong.
Lai was awarded Deutsche Welle’s Freedom of Speech Award in absentia on Thursday.
For Bielakowska, the trend is unmistakable.
“Press freedom in Hong Kong is facing systemic collapse,” she said. “This is the criminalisation of journalism itself.”
Invisible red lines
For the journalists who remain, the challenge is often less direct censorship than navigating an invisible red line – the unclear boundaries of what authorities will tolerate.
“There are red lines that cannot be crossed,” Bielakowska said. “But no one tells you exactly where they are.”
Unlike mainland China, where independent journalism has largely been pushed underground, Hong Kong still has a small number of independent outlets trying to survive.
But they work in constant uncertainty.
Mak Yin-ting, an RFI correspondent and former head of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, says authorities rarely need to ban stories outright.
Instead, ambiguity itself becomes the tool.
“If they don’t like what you’re writing, they can accuse you of sedition,” she said.
Under Article 23, Hong Kong’s domestic national security legislation, sedition charges can carry up to 10 years in prison for publishing false or misleading statements – wording journalists say remains dangerously vague.
“It’s basically up to interpretation,” Mak said. “They are importing the same methods of censorship used in mainland China.”
Self-censorship has become routine.
Many outlets now avoid politically sensitive commentary altogether. Some no longer seek outside analysis on controversial issues, while others simply reproduce government statements word for word without presenting the original facts being disputed.
“That is already part of self-censorship,” Mak said. “You write (only) the government’s statements, but not what actually happened.”
Even accessing basic information has become harder.
“Government data is becoming very hard to find,” she said. “They are basically deleting everything that might be sensitive.”
Public databases and official reports that were once available online for more than a decade are now removed after one or two years, making investigative reporting significantly harder.
Private archives are also disappearing, with some major outlets deleting years of previous of reporting.
“It’s not only about fear of arrest,” Bielakowska added. “Even gathering information becomes harder because sources themselves are afraid to speak.”
Many officials, academics and civil servants no longer agree to interviews, even on conditions of anonymity.
“The authorities have created such an atmosphere of fear that many first-hand sources simply don’t want to go on record anymore,” she said.
‘They can be next’
Despite the pressure, some journalists continue reporting – fully aware of the risks.
“They know that at any time, they can be next,” said Bielakowska.
To protect junior reporters and freelancers, some editors choose to sign all articles under their own names.
“The editor-in-chief becomes the face of the media,” Bielakowska said. “If arrests happen, it becomes the sacrifice of one person rather than the whole newsroom.”
She points to the Hong Kong Journalists Association – one of the few remaining independent press organisations still operating in the city – as proof that resistance remains.
“It’s not only courage, but commitment to press freedom,” she said.
Veteran journalists who remember a freer Hong Kong continue to hold the line.
“It was top of the top,” Bielakowska said of Hong Kong’s press corps in the early 2000s. “Some of the best investigative journalists in the world were there.”
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That memory still drives many reporters today.
“They remember what Hong Kong was. That is why they still have the strength to continue.”
For Tom Grundy, founder and editor-in-chief of Hong Kong Free Press, the pressure has become part of daily newsroom life.
“Since the onset of the security law, the city has seen the harassment of journalists, over 60 civil society groups disappear, newsrooms raided and journalists jailed.”
His own outlet has not been spared.
“In short, HKFP has unfortunately suffered harassment, intimidation and bureaucratic scrutiny, and it has escalated over recent years,” he said.
Still, he insists there remains a narrow space for independent journalism. “The space gets tighter and tighter, but it’s not quite mainland China.”
“We can still show up to press conferences and ask tough questions to officials,” he said. “It’s better to be in than out, and we can still maintain accuracy, nuance and understanding by being in the city with Hong Kongers.”
But the limits are increasingly visible.
“Nevertheless, it’s harder to get people to speak from all parts of the political spectrum,” he said. “For features, opinion pieces – these kinds of things – it’s very, very tough.”
For many, simply continuing to publish has become an act of resistance.
“We try to keep calm and carry on and navigate the red lines,” Grundy said.
‘We cannot give up’
For press freedom advocates, the greatest danger is not only repression inside Hong Kong, but the growing sense abroad that the battle has already been lost.
“There is this thinking among policymakers in Europe and the US that Hong Kong is lost – that there is nothing left to do,” Bielakowska said. “That is a mistake.”
She warns that treating the city’s clampdown on freedoms as inevitable only strengthens Beijing’s strategy.
“There should be no normalisation.”
But sustaining that work depends on external support – from visa pathways and legal protection to funding for independent journalism.
Neighbouring countries have become part of this fragile support network. Taiwan, in particular, has emerged as an important refuge for journalists and activists fleeing pressure from Hong Kong and mainland China, offering a place where some have been able to rebuild their work in relative safety.
Bielakowska describes the island, which ranks 28th out of 180 countries, as one of the few remaining spaces in the region where press freedom is still broadly protected. South Korea ranks 47th while Japan ranks 62nd.
Yet she says support remains inconsistent and largely ad hoc. While some individuals have been quietly assisted or allowed to settle, there is still no structured system for supporting exiled media workers.
And even where journalists do find safety abroad, she warns the pressure does not necessarily end. Democracies, she says, must take transnational repression more seriously.
“What happened to Antoine shows this is no longer only a Hong Kong issue,” she said.
For Mak, the fight for press freedom has become a simple question of endurance.
“It is like tug-of-war,” she said. “If one side abandons, you lose everything.”
As long as independent journalists remain – in Hong Kong or in exile – she says silence is not an option.
“We cannot give up.”
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