China’s national security office in Hong Kong summoned senior journalists from major international outlets over the weekend, warning them against spreading “false information” about the city’s deadliest fire in decades. Officials declined to say whether those media had done anything wrong.
The Office for Safeguarding National Security (OSNS), Beijing’s national security arm in Hong Kong established in 2020 after a sweeping national-security law, called the meeting on December 6 following allegedly critical reporting on the blaze, which killed at least 159 people.
OSNS, which allows mainland security agents to operate openly in the city with powers to investigate and prosecute national-security offenses, summoned international journalists as Hong Kong continues to grapple with the deadly fire that dominated local news coverage for more than a week and led to at least three arrests for alleged sedition, according to Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP), an independent English-language newsroom.
The outlet reported that foreign media, including Agence France-Presse, the Financial Times, The New York Times, the Associated Press, Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal, said officials gave no examples of inaccurate coverage and did not take questions.
In a statement posted online shortly after the meeting, the OSNS accused “some foreign media reports on Hong Kong” of having “disregarded facts, spread false information, distorted and smeared the government’s disaster relief and aftermath work, attacked and interfered with the Legislative Council election, (and) provoked social division and confrontation.” OSNS, however, did not say whether any particular report had provoked such a reaction or provide examples of the coverage it deemed problematic.
The office urged foreign journalists to “not cross the legal red line,” saying it “will not tolerate the actions of anti-China and trouble-making elements in Hong Kong.” It added: “Don’t say we didn’t warn you.”
While not specifying what the “red line” entails, the OSNS stressed that “freedom of the press” does not permit foreign outlets to interfere in China’s internal affairs or Hong Kong matters “under the banner of journalism.” It said international media must comply with national-security laws and adhere to reporting standards that are “truthful, accurate, objective, impartial.”
Press freedom groups condemned the authorities’ actions. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a New York–based media rights watchdog, called on Chinese and Hong Kong officials to “immediately stop harassing journalists … and allow the media to freely cover the city’s most deadly fire in decades.”
“The escalation in intimidation to silence the media is appalling and unacceptable,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia-Pacific director. “It is shameful that authorities in Beijing and Hong Kong are using national security as a pretext to harass journalists and to silence calls for accountability when the people of Hong Kong are mourning a tragedy.”
China remains the world’s worst jailer of journalists, with at least 50 behind bars, according to CPJ’s research.
