Hong Kong news site CitizenNews said on Sunday (January 2nd) that it would cease operations to "keep everyone safe," three days after police raided another independent site accused of sedition.
CitizenNews, a non-partisan, user-funded news site founded in 2017 by a group of senior journalists, is one of Hong Kong's most popular online news outlets, with more than 800,000 subscribers on social networks.
During the past year, he had hired several journalists from other media, as the authorities tightened their control over the press.
Hong Kong Radio Television came under the control of pro-government leaders while pro-democracy
Apple Daily
, accused of posing a threat to national security, was forced to shut down.
At the end of the day Sunday, CitizenNews announced "with a heavy heart" that it would cease operations on Tuesday and that its website would be closed "later".
“Unfortunately, we can no longer strive to turn our beliefs into reality without fear due to the drastic change in society over the past two years and the deteriorating media environment,” he said in a commentary. communicated.
Four of CitizenNews co-founders are former presidents of the Hong Kong Journalists Association.
China has tightened its control over Hong Kong since massive and often violent pro-democracy protests engulfed the city in 2019, including cracking down on the local press.
Police raided the newsroom of StandNews, a media outlet similar to CitizenNews, on Wednesday, which announced it was shutting down hours later.
With AFP
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