2014-07-07
Protesters display placards during a rally to support press freedom in Hong Kong, March 2, 2014.
AFP
Hong Kong's formerly freewheeling press is seeing its "darkest days" yet, in what is likely a harbinger of further erosion of the former British colony's traditional freedoms, journalists and political commentators said on Monday.
"The year under review has been the darkest for press freedom for several decades," the Hong Kong Journalists' Association (HKJA) said in a statement issued with its annual report on Sunday.
"As political tension between Hong Kong and Beijing increases, the HKJA expects further deterioration in press freedom in the years to come," the statement on the group's website said.
According to a recent HKJA poll, the territory's journalists rated press freedom at 42 on a 100-point scale, as well as expressing concern about self-censorship and pressure from media owners and management.
"People used to talk about the frog heating up slowly in a pan of tepid water in the past, but it's not like that now," Hong Kong Journalists' Association (HKJA) chairwoman Sham Yee-lan told RFA on Monday.
"Right now, the frog is getting boiled alive."
She said Hong Kong's media is currently in a state of "siege emergency."
"[It] is under attack from all quarters, including some within its own ranks, and from some who blatantly trample press freedom underfoot," Sham said.
