The new president of Hong Kong’s top professional media group said she lost her job at The Wall Street Journal after refusing her supervisor’s request to withdraw from the leadership election.
Reporter Selina Cheng said at a press conference on Wednesday that a senior editor told her her position was eliminated due to restructuring. But Cheng said he believed the real reason was linked to his supervisor’s request about three weeks ago to withdraw from the election for president of the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA), a journalists’ union that also advocates freedom of expression. press.
She said her supervisor also asked her to step down from the association’s board, where she has served since 2021. After she refused, she was told it “would be incompatible” with her work.
“I am shocked that the first press conference I give as the new president of the HKJA is to announce that I have been fired for taking this position at a press union,” said Cheng, who was elected the new president in June.
Dow Jones, which publishes the paper, confirmed on Wednesday that it had made “some personnel changes” but declined to comment on individuals.
“The Wall Street Journal has been and continues to be a fierce and vocal defender of press freedom in Hong Kong and around the world,” it said in a statement emailed to The Associated Press.
Hong Kong journalists work in an increasingly narrow space following drastic political changes in the city that was once seen as a bastion of press freedom in Asia.
Since the introduction of a Beijing-imposed national security law in 2020, two local media outlets known for critical coverage of the government, Apple Daily and Stand News, have been forced to close following the arrest of their top management, including the editor of Apple Daily Jimmy Lai.
In March, Hong Kong enacted another security law targeting involvement in espionage, the disclosure of state secrets and “collusion with external forces” to commit illegal acts, among others. The legislation raised concerns among many journalists about a further decline in media freedom.
Less than a week after enactment, US-funded Radio Free Asia announced that its Hong Kong bureau had been closed due to security concerns under the new law.
‘Deeply shocked’
The Hong Kong Journalists Association has been criticized by local authorities and pro-Beijing media outlets in recent years.
In June, Hong Kong Security Secretary Chris Tang said the association lacked legitimacy and accused it of supporting protesters in 2019.
The Wall Street Journal also faced government pressure. Last July, he received three letters of complaint from Tang about his editorials or opinion pieces.
In May, the American media outlet announced to its employees that it was moving “its center of gravity” in the Hong Kong region to Singapore. This resulted in some employees losing their jobs in the Chinese financial hub. Cheng, who covered China’s auto and energy sector, was not affected.
After she refused to withdraw from the HKJA elections last month, she said, her supervisor told her that Wall Street Journal workers should not be seen as defending press freedom in “a place like Hong Kong.” because such a defense would create a conflict as the media reports on incidents regarding press freedom in the city.
Cheng said the media outlet has supported his colleague Evan Gershkovich, who was arrested in Russia on espionage charges that he, his employer and the U.S. government vehemently deny.
“That’s why I am deeply shocked that the Journal’s senior editors would actively violate the human rights of their employees, preventing them from defending the freedom of the press that Journal reporters depend on for work,” said Cheng, who worked as a video news assistant at The Associated Press in Hong Kong in 2014.
She stated that her former employer had a negative impact on the deterioration of press freedom in Hong Kong.
The HKJA said in a statement that the Wall Street Journal risks accelerating the decline of the remaining space for independent journalism by pressuring its employees not to participate in it. Other elected members of the association’s board were also pressured by their employers to resign, he said, without providing details.
Hong Kong ranked 135th out of 180 countries and territories in Reporters Without Borders’ latest World Press Freedom Index.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
