Editor’s note: Hong Kong officials on Tuesday unanimously passed their own version of a national security law that could sentence people convicted of political crimes, such as treason or external interference.
Article 23 of the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, requires the enactment of a national security law, which residents have protested in the past over fears it could restrict freedoms. Now, with a pro-Beijing parliament, the bill was passed at record speed.
John Lee, the city’s top leader, said the new law was needed to address loopholes in the existing national security law that Beijing imposed on Hong Kong in 2020. greeted its passage as “a historic moment that Hong Kongers have been waiting for more than 26 years”.
A coalition of 77 international parliamentarians and public figures, including Hong Kong’s last British governor, Chris Patten, and US senator Marco Rubio, issued a statement condemning the Article 23 legislation as a “blatant violation” of the Basic Law, the Sino-British Joint Declaration and international human rights law.
While many Hong Kongers have left the city, others, like Lo Man Wai, editor-in-chief of Christian Times newspaper, decided to stay. Here he writes about his work in Hong Kong as the city undergoes unprecedented change.
IOver the past four years, since the implementation of the first national security law, Hong Kong has experienced a seismic change. Many citizens devoted to this city for decades, including prominent pro-democracy activists, journalists, opinion leaders, social workers and politicians, have disappeared from the public sphere. Some were detained; others are in exile. Still others remain in Hong Kong but are not allowed to speak publicly.
Once known for its freedoms, Hong Kong has fallen to the bottom of Reporters Without Borders’ press freedom rankings. ranking. A sense of fear that permeates civil society pushes citizens to self-censor. Pro-democracy newspapers and websites closed their doors while journalists launched their own news channels on social media. The city is currently experiencing a serious brain draineven if the government will not admit it.
So what am I still doing running a Christian news platform in Hong Kong?
The Chinese language Christian times started in 1987 as a small weekly newspaper. Through features, features, opinions and devotions, we think about social issues from a Christian perspective and transmit discussions between Christians of different denominations and theological backgrounds. What differentiates Christian times Other Christian publications in Hong Kong include a focus on journalism.
Today we see our mission as even more necessary because an authoritarian government can easily neglect the weak and vulnerable, and because Christians need access to the truth about what is happening around them.
As the atmosphere grows tense in Hong Kong, we feel it too. More and more writers and sources prefer to remain anonymous. It is difficult to find Christians willing to share their honest opinions with our readers due to the need to self-censor.
The Church also faces unique challenges. Many Hong Kong churches have historical, denominational, and social ties to churches in mainland China. Stories of persecution of Christians on the continent – from the arrests and violence of the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s to the cross deletions in 2014 – informing churches in Hong Kong about what the future of religious freedom might look like.
Local churches are experiencing their own brain drain as faithful and pastoral staff leave Hong Kong for the United Kingdom as well as other countries. Churches are increasingly facing financial difficulties gaps as their congregations dwindle and Hong Kong’s post-COVID economy struggles. These are important trends and stories that Christian Times continues to cover.
While our readers continue to support us through subscriptions and donations, our advertising revenue has fluctuated. Christian organizations, churches and members of the local Christian community are our primary advertisers. For a few years after the political changes, the number of job openings skyrocketed, as many churches and organizations needed to fill vacancies left by those who had emigrated abroad. During the second half of 2023, a total of 222 churches posted openings on our site and on denominational sites.
But in recent months, the number of recruitment announcements has been decreasing. We don’t know exactly why, although the city is currently facing economic decline action prices, accommodation prices, and exports drop.
Recruiting staff to manage our media site is also becoming increasingly difficult. When we post jobs, only a few people apply. In the past, many were willing to work for us as interns, volunteer reporters or photojournalists. While Christian Times has not experienced a mass exodus like some local churches, where almost half the congregation has left, it is still difficult to find employees capable of taking on the heavy workload we currently experience.
I don’t blame those who are leaving Hong Kong, especially now that our freedoms are crumbling. Leaving is a rational decision. Yet even if people can go, the Church cannot. There are still people here in Hong Kong who need to hear the Gospel and how it meets their spiritual, emotional and material needs. Hong Kong’s Christian community still needs information to understand the current reality and make sound judgment. Certainly, Christian media has work to do here.
In a society that is becoming increasingly authoritarian, the voices of the weak and powerless are increasingly ignored, neglected or silenced. An independent media like ours can give a platform to these voices, even if we take risks ourselves. To continue publishing, we must ensure that we do not touch the government’s ‘red line’, as the results would be catastrophic. However, the government does not clearly specify where this red line is located. Even for simple editorial decisions, we need to seriously evaluate whether the risk is worth taking. So we act in faith.
For example, in 2021, just a year after the implementation of the previous national security law, the Hong Kong government planned to require all citizens to install a COVID-19 contact tracing app on their phone, that they would have to show every time they showed up. entered a public place. But for the poor or homeless who cannot afford a smartphone, such a measure could deprive them of essential public facilities such as toilets, hospitals and markets.
Organizations working with this population were concerned about the consequences, but they feared that under the new law they could be punished for discussing public affairs. Would publicly criticizing a government measure touch the red line? However, a Christian non-profit organization decided to interview some people who would be affected by the measure and posted the recordings online on social media.
Christian Times and several other local media outlets decided to cover the story despite the risks. Shortly after, the government amended the measure. People without smartphones could ask social workers for letters allowing them to manually register their information when entering public places. The Hong Kong government has not clarified whether it made this change due to public objections, so we cannot say with certainty whether our reporting has been effective. But we know it was the right thing to do.
Our editorial team has been confronted with numerous deliberations of this type in recent years. Sometimes we decided the risk wasn’t worth it. When we took the risk, we sometimes saw changes due to our coverage, but often this was not the case.
As Christian journalists in Hong Kong, we need God’s wisdom to exercise discernment in our daily lives. We want more people to care about the poor, the weak, the sick, the homeless, and those in prison, just as Jesus told us in Matthew 25:31-46. We know we can’t do everything, but we hope the Lord will use our small works in this city for His benefit.
The situation in Hong Kong continues to become tense. The government has just adopted a law against treason, sedition, insurrection, espionage and collaboration with external forces, which will come into force on March 23. Yet a similar proposal in 2003 sparked a peaceful movement. demonstration by half a million people, thus interrupting the legislative process.
This time there are no protests due to heavy sanctions against protesters since the implementation of the national security law four years ago. The government now says that 99 percent of people who submitted their opinions on the new law agreed with that.
A recent investigation found that Hong Kongers rate religious freedom as above average in Hong Kong. Meanwhile, freedoms of speech, press and association are somewhat below average. (Freedom of demonstration was ranked lowest.) However, religious freedom is not independent of other freedoms. We don’t know what will happen once the proposed legislation takes effect. Will religious freedom remain the same? Will local churches still be able to fellowship with overseas churches? Will there be space for news media to uphold journalistic values? Where will the red line be?
Please pray for Hong Kong. We also need your prayers for Christian Times so that we can continue to faithfully serve the Christian community here, bringing them the truth and keeping a written history of what is happening in our beloved city.
