Hong Kong’s historic Foreign Correspondents’ Club has suspended its annual Asian human rights journalism awards over fears they could break the Chinese territory’s tough security law.
The decision to halt the Human Rights Press Awards, which were launched in 1995 to recognise top reporting from across Asia, follows a broad crackdown on media in Hong Kong under the national security law introduced by Beijing in 2020.
The move, which was criticised by some of the FCC’s own members, demonstrated the silencing effect the law has had on Hong Kong’s press and journalists.
“The FCC board met on Saturday . . . and, after a lengthy discussion, regretfully decided to suspend the Human Rights Press Awards pending further review,” FCC president Keith Richburg said in a statement.
“Over the past 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,” he added.
Two people familiar with the matter said the FCC had planned to award some of the honours to Stand News, an online news website that closed late last year after being raided by police. A number of local journalists have been prosecuted by authorities under the security law, which carries a maximum penalty of life in prison.
The FCC board suspended the awards after seeking legal advice and coming to the conclusion that proceeding would carry risks. Richburg was warned in person in recent months by Chinese diplomats about statements the club had made about press freedom, according to two people with knowledge of the situation.
Shibani Mahtani, an FCC member and Washington Post correspondent, resigned from the club’s press freedom committee over the decision, along with seven other committee members.
“It is emblematic . . . of the self-censorship many institutions feel forced to subject themselves to in today’s Hong Kong . . . and entirely indicative of how the national security law has changed the landscape for all,” Mahtani said of the club’s decision.
“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,” she added.
Richburg declined to comment further on the decision.
In December, China’s foreign affairs ministry’s arm in Hong Kong hit out at the FCC after the club criticised the arrests of senior journalists at Stand News.
The club had said in a statement that the closure of what was a leading pro-democracy news outlet was a “blow to press freedom”.
Some “external forces fanned the flames in haste and spoke up for anti-China forces in Hong Kong”, the ministry said in response. It also lashed out at the FCC in November following a survey on the city’s press freedom and told the club not to “interfere with Hong Kong affairs”.
Just one FCC board member, Dan Strumpf of the Wall Street Journal, voted against suspending the awards and has subsequently resigned from the board, according to two people familiar with the matter. Strumpf declined to comment.
The club has a long history dating back to its inception during the second world war in Chongqing in mainland China before moving to Hong Kong in 1949.
In 2018, Hong Kong authorities refused to renew the visa of Victor Mallet, then the Asia news editor of the Financial Times, after he chaired a talk at the FCC by a pro-independence activist.
