Hong Kong news outlet to close amid crackdown on dissent

HONG KONG – A Hong Kong online quality tract said Sunday that it would cease operations successful airy of deteriorating property freedoms, days aft constabulary raided and arrested 7 radical for sedition astatine a abstracted pro-democracy quality outlet.

Citizen News announced its determination successful a Facebook station Sunday. It said it would halt updating its tract connected Jan. 4, and it would beryllium shuttered aft that.

“We person ever loved this land, but astatine present, we are helpless arsenic we are not lone facing upwind and rain, but tornadoes and immense waves,” it said successful a statement.

“We person ne'er forgotten our archetypal intentions, but it is simply a pity that the accelerated changes successful nine successful the past 2 years and the deterioration of the media situation person prevented america from achieving our ideals without worry.”

Citizen News is the 3rd quality outlet to adjacent successful caller months, pursuing pro-democracy paper Apple Daily and online tract Stand News. Authorities person moved to soundless dissent successful the semi-autonomous city, erstwhile known arsenic a hub for vibrant media outlets, aft Beijing implemented a sweeping nationalist information instrumentality pursuing monolithic pro-democracy protests successful 2019.

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The impending closure of Citizen News came days aft authorities raided Stand News and arrested 7 radical — including editors and erstwhile committee members — for allegedly conspiring to people seditious material. Stand News announced connected the aforesaid time that it would cease to operate.

Two of Stand News' erstwhile editors were aboriginal formally charged with sedition.

In December, the absorption was unopen retired from elections nether a caller instrumentality that puts each candidates to a loyalty test, and monuments commemorating the bloody 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown successful Beijing were taken down.

The U.S. and different Western authorities person condemned diminishing property and civilian freedoms that Beijing promised to uphold for 50 years pursuing Hong Kong's 1997 handover from Britain.

Hong Kong person Carrie Lam past week defended the raid connected Stand News, telling reporters that “inciting different radical ... could not beryllium condoned nether the guise of quality reporting.”

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