China's crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong has already silenced or imprisoned most pro-democracy figures.

The press is now in its sights.

Mr Chan, president of the Hong Kong Journalists Association and editor of the pro-democracy news site Stand News, knew he was a prime target.

"I was mentally prepared for it," he told AFP, "but when they showed the search warrant, I was shaking."

With his phone, he broadcast his exchanges with the police live before being forced to stop.

This was his last report for Stand News.

On the same day, the site's assets were frozen and seven people were arrested for "seditious publication" under the national security law imposed by Beijing in 2020.

Ronnie Chan, president of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, poses on January 7, 2022 outside the premises of his former employer, the Stand News news site Peter PARKS AFP/Archives

Two employees have been charged and taken into custody.

Mr. Chan has so far not been worried beyond the search of his home.

“Will we be next?” ask local media and increasingly international media, in a city once considered a bastion of press freedom in Asia.

"Journalists are supposed to speak truths to power," Lokman Tsui, a former lecturer in journalism at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, now based in the Netherlands, told AFP.

"And right now, the truth is (deemed) subversive in Hong Kong."

"Everything accelerated"

Mainland China ranks near the bottom of the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) press freedom index.

Local media are tightly controlled by Beijing and foreign journalists are subject to severe restrictions.

After the return of the former British colony to China in 1997, Hong Kong remained a haven of freedom for the media.

The local press was renowned for its stubbornness and did not hesitate to denounce the actions of certain senior officials, unlike the Chinese media.

But over the years, a shadow has begun to hang over freedom of the press in Hong Kong.

When RSF published its first annual ranking in 2002, Hong Kong was 18th.

Last year, the city had tumbled to 80th place.

And since June, the threat has continued to grow.

It all started with the shutdown of the Apple Daily which supported the 2019 pro-democracy protests.

Its owner, Jimmy Lai, already in detention, and senior executives of the daily were arrested and charged with "collusion with foreign forces".

Stand News was next and a week later, the news site CitizenNews, founded in 2017 by veteran reporters and funded by its readers, shut down, fearing for the safety of its reporters.

A Hong Kong resident reads a newspaper on a city street on January 6, 2022 Peter PARKS AFP/Archives

“Press freedom has been declining for years, but in 2020 everything has accelerated,” said Yuen Chan, a Hong Kong journalist now teaching at City University in London.

"Climate of Fear"

Repeatedly, Chief Executive Carrie Lam has dismissed the charges, saying authorities were simply enforcing the law.

After Stand News and CitizenNews were shut down, she merely replied that Western countries had “much more draconian” national security laws than Hong Kong, without citing any examples of countries where they would have been. used against the press.

A former editor of the independent news site InMedia believes that there is an "unprecedented climate of fear in the sector".

“It is difficult to assess the risks,” he admits, requesting anonymity.

Until now, the international media have not been targeted by the national security law, but now the government does not hide its annoyance when foreign media coverage displeases it.

AFP, CNN, The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg are among the overseas media with regional headquarters in Hong Kong.

Since November, the authorities have sent 13 letters of admonition to foreign newspapers following editorials on Hong Kong that they did not like.

Mr. Chan of Stand News hopes foreign journalists will stay to continue reporting on what is happening in Hong Kong.

However, he invites them not to underestimate the authorities' hard-line approach.

"People thought the Apple Daily would never close, it had a 25-year history and over a thousand employees. But it closed anyway."

© 2022 AFP