To maintain a free press, we must fight the global siege against it

With the closure of Stand News, a pro-democracy news site in Hong Kong, at the end of 2021, the alarms signaling the continuing erosion of press freedom around the world have become deafening.

Chinese government officials claim its content and editorial stance violate the 2020 National Security Law, which international human rights groups around the world have uniformly criticized. In a statement issued by the Hong Kong Journalists Association, national security police arrested at least six current or former directors and senior staff of Stand News early in the morning of Dec. 29 on suspicion of “conspiracy to distribute seditious publications”.

The shuttering of Stand News, following the protracted attacks on Apple Daily by China and the recent closure of Citizen News, are further evidence of the erosion of press freedom and the corresponding threat this poses to the future of democracy.