Censorship in Hong Kong

Censorship in Hong Kong, which refers to the suppression of speech or other public communication, raises issues regarding the freedom of speech. By law, censorship is usually practised against the distribution of certain materials, particularly child pornography, obscene images, and reports on court cases which may lead to unfair trial.

Prior to the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997, Hong Kong boasted one of the highest degrees of press freedom in Asia. Since the handover to mainland China, Hong Kong has been granted relative legal, economic, and political autonomy under the one country, two systems policy. In contrast to the rest of China, where control over media is pervasive, Hong Kong's freedom of speech, of the press, and of publication are protected under Article 27 of the Hong Kong Basic Law and Article 16 of the Hong Kong Bill of Rights.

Observers have noted a trend of increasing threats to press freedom in the territory, including physical attacks on journalists, acts targeted at liberal media and against their owners, withdrawal of advertising revenues, and appointment of compliant pro-Beijing chief editors. The decline in Hong Kong's ranking on the Press Freedom Index published annually by Reporters Without Borders has been vertiginous: it stood at 70th in 2015, having lost nine places compared to 2014; it ranked 18th place in 2002.

Despite guarantees of free speech, public surveys in 1997 showed increasing fears of self-censorship by journalists of writings critical of the Central Government, although a journalists indicated in a survey from the Hong Kong Journalists Association that they overwhelmingly did not hesitate to publish criticisms of China, and that actual instances of direct pressure from the Chinese government to change news were very rare. Since the handover, Hong Kong newspapers (and especially English-language media) have increased their use of a self-declared editorial independence as a marketing tool towards international audiences.

In 1998, there was a controversy about remarks made by magazine publisher Xu Simin alleging anti-mainland bias from the government-funded broadcaster RTHK. Although pro-RTHK commentators saw Xu's comments as coming from Beijing, Central Government representatives distanced themselves from his comments. In 2001, the HKJA expressed concerns that government's and Tung Chee-hwa's "shrill rhetoric [in vilifying Falun Gong] threatens open debate by encouraging self-censorship".

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