Head of Hong Kong Journalists Group Arrested While Reporting

Kari Lindberg
·2 min read
1

(Bloomberg) -- The leader of Hong Kong’s largest journalists group was arrested on allegations of obstructing police, in the latest case to fan concerns about press freedom in the city.

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Hong Kong Journalists Association Chairman Ronson Chan was arrested Wednesday while reporting on a story, his news outlet, Channel C, reported. Chan, a deputy assignment editor, was detained while in the area of Mong Kok while trying report on a residential estate committee meeting about a property development, the outlet said.

The Hong Kong police said in a statement that a 41-year-old man named Chan was arrested in Mong Kok on suspicion of obstructing a police officer and public disorder after acting suspiciously and refusing to show his identity card. The man was being held pending further investigation, the police said.

Chan said in a text message to Bloomberg News he had been released without charge, and would need to report to police later this month. In a Facebook post published at about 3 a.m., he apologized for worrying people.

The international press freedom group Reporters Without Borders called for Chan’s “immediate release” in a Twitter post late Wednesday. Hong Kong fell 68 places year on year to 148th place in Reporters Without Borders’s most recent World Press Freedom Index as China cracks down on dissent in the former British colony.

Several pro-democracy media outlets have shut down in the wake of a Beijing-drafted national security law implemented in June 2020. Apple Daily, the city’s largest pro-democracy newspaper, was forced to close last year after the government seized its assets, while independent media outlets including Stand News and Citizen News have also ceased publication.

Both Chan and the Hong Kong Journalists Association have come under criticism from authorities and pro-Beijing media. Security Secretary Chris Tang last year said that the organization “infiltrates” schools to attract students to journalism, a claim the HKJA has denied.

(Updates with Chan’s release in paragraph four.)

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