Hong Kong Drops to Lowest Category in Press Freedom Rankings

An annual index of press freedom has for the first time placed Hong Kong alongside mainland China in its worst 'very serious' category.
Hong Kong scored 39.86 out of 100—the lowest score for the former British colony on record—in the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) 2025 World Press Freedom Index.
Published on May 2, the index shows that
RSF pointed out that at the judicial level, since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forced the implementation of the Hong Kong National Security Law (NSL) in 2020 to suppress independent voices, Hong Kong's press freedom has experienced an
But its vague definition of the crimes mean that the NSL could apply to any journalist reporting on Hong Kong, regardless of whether they reside in the city. The crime of 'incitement' has also been widely used to prosecute journalists. Addition of 'espionage,' 'stealing state secrets,' and 'external interference,' through the enactment of the 'Safeguarding National Security Ordinance' in 2024 further expanded the legal threats faced by journalists.
RSF also mentioned that most of Hong Kong's major media are currently owned by pro-Beijing camps, while owners of independent media face political pressure. Two major independent media outlets in Hong Kong, Apple Daily and Stand News, were forced to cease operations in 2021 and had their assets were frozen by the SAR government.
Related Stories
4/8/2025
4/2/2025
'Stand News' is a well-known online media in Hong Kong. It was once ranked first in credibility in a
Apple Daily used to be one of the best-selling newspapers in Hong Kong. Its founder,
As for security, RSF mentioned that before 2014, it was quite safe to work as a journalist in Hong Kong. But in recent years, there have been cases of journalists being arrested and subjected to violence at the hands of some police. In 2024, the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA) stated that dozens of their members were subjected to organized harassment.
RSF has been publishing its Press Freedom Index since 2002. Hong Kong's ranking has gradually declined from 18th in the world in 2002 and once fell to 148th in 2022, although its score then was still considered 'difficult' at 41.64 points.
It was only in 2025 that Hong Kong's press situation was downgraded to the 'very serious' situation category for the first time in the city's history, despite ranking slightly higher.
Mainland China ranked 178th this year, third from the bottom among 180 countries and regions, with 113 journalists imprisoned. It scored 14.8 out of 100. China, under the communist party's rule, is
Meanwhile Taiwan, which is a liberal democracy, ranks high at

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Chicago Tribune

15 hours ago

• Chicago Tribune

Sunken Bayesian superyacht lifted from waters off Sicily as salvage operation completed

PORTICELLO, Italy — A British-flagged luxury superyacht that sank off Sicily last year, killing U.K. tech magnate Mike Lynch and six others, was lifted from the water Saturday as salvage recovery crews completed the complex operation to bring it ashore for further investigation. The white top and blue hull of the 56-meter (184-foot) Bayesian, covered with algae and mud, was visibly clear of the sea in a holding area of a yellow floating crane barge off the Sicilian port of Porticello. 'The hull of the superyacht Bayesian has today been successfully and safely recovered from the sea off the coast of northern Sicily,' said TMC Maritime, the company conducting the recovery. 'This follows a delicate lifting procedure that began early today.' TMC added that the hull will continue to be held 'in an elevated position to allow expert salvage personnel to complete checks and preparations' ahead of its transportation into the Sicilian port of Termini Imerese on Sunday. The floating crane platform will move the Bayesian to the port, where a special steel cradle is waiting for it. The vessel will be then made available for investigators to help determine the cause of the sinking. The Bayesian sank Aug. 19 off Porticello, near Palermo, during a violent storm as Lynch was treating friends to a cruise to celebrate his acquittal two months earlier in the U.S. on fraud charges. Lynch, his daughter and five others died. Fifteen people survived, including the captain and all crew members except the chef. Italian authorities are conducting a full criminal investigation. The vessel has been slowly raised from the seabed, 50 meters (165-feet) down, over the past three days to allow the steel lifting straps, slings and harnesses to be secured under the keel. Eight steel lifting straps were used to put the hull upright and to form part of a steel wire lifting system that began raising the vessel out of the water Saturday. As the superyacht was raised, seawater was pumped out of the hull. The Bayesian is missing its 72-meter (236-foot) mast, which was cut off and left on the seabed for future removal. The mast had to be detached to allow the hull to be brought to a nearly upright position that would allow the craft to be raised. British investigators said in an interim report issued last month that the yacht was knocked over by 'extreme wind' and couldn't recover. The report said the crew of the Bayesian had chosen the site where it sank as shelter from forecast thunderstorms. Wind speeds exceeded 70 knots (81 mph) at the time of the sinking and 'violently' knocked the vessel over to a 90-degree angle in under 15 seconds. Lynch, who sold Autonomy, a software maker he founded in 1996, to Hewlett-Packard for $11 billion in 2011, had been acquitted of fraud charges in June 2024 by a federal court jury in San Francisco.

CNBC

16 hours ago

• CNBC

B-2 bombers moving to Guam amid Middle East tensions, U.S. officials say

The United States is moving B-2 bombers to the Pacific island of Guam, two U.S. officials told Reuters on Saturday, as President Donald Trump weighs whether the U.S. should take part in Israel's strikes against Iran. It was unclear whether the bomber deployment is tied to Middle East tensions. The B-2 can be equipped to carry America's 30,000-pound GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, designed to destroy targets deep underground. That is the weapon that experts say could be used to strike Iran's nuclear program, including Fordow. The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, declined to disclose any further details. One official said no forward orders had been given yet to move the bombers beyond Guam. They did not say how many B-2 bombers are being moved. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Experts and officials are closely watching to see whether the B-2 bombers will move forward to a U.S.-British military base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia. Experts say that Diego Garcia is in an ideal position to operate in the Middle East. The United States had B-2 bombers on Diego Garcia up until last month, when they were replaced with B-52 bombers. Israel said on Saturday it had killed a veteran Iranian commander during attacks by both sides in the more than week-long air war, while Tehran said it would not negotiate over its nuclear program while under threat. Israel says Iran was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons, while Iran says its atomic program is only for peaceful purposes. Trump has said he would take up to two weeks to decide whether the United States should enter the conflict on Israel's side, enough time "to see whether or not people come to their senses," he said. Reuters was first to report this week the movement of a large number of tanker aircraft to Europe and other military assets to the Middle East, including the deployment of more fighter jets. An aircraft carrier in the Indo-Pacific is also heading to the Middle East.

Politico

17 hours ago

• Politico

‘Great American battle' commemorated on 250th anniversary

NEW YORK — As the U.S. marks the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill, it might take a moment — or more — to remember why. Start with the very name. 'There's something percussive about it: Battle of Bunker Hill,' says prize-winning historian Nathaniel Philbrick, whose 'Bunker Hill: A City, A Siege, A Revolution' was published in 2013. 'What actually happened probably gets hazy for people outside of the Boston area, but it's part of our collective memory and imagination.' 'Few 'ordinary' Americans could tell you that Freeman's Farm, or Germantown, or Guilford Court House were battles,' says Paul Lockhart, a professor of history at Wright University and author of a Bunker Hill book, 'The Whites of Their Eyes,' which came out in 2011. 'But they can say that Gettysburg,D-Day, and Bunker Hill were battles.' Bunker Hill, Lockhart adds, 'is the great American battle, if there is such a thing.' Much of the world looks to the Battles of Lexington and Concord, fought in Massachusetts on April 19, 1775, as the start of the American Revolution. But Philbrick, Lockhart and others cite Bunker Hill and June 17 as the real beginning, the first time British and rebel forces faced off in sustained conflict over a specific piece of territory. A day-long reenactment of the battle got underway Saturday morning with the seaside city of Gloucester standing in for Charlestown. Organizers chose a state park some 35 miles (56 kilometers) from Boston to stage the battle because such activity is prohibited at the actual site. Hundreds of onlookers watched as sharpshooters positioned on a rocky outcropping fired upon red-coated British sailors landing in the harbor. During the actual battle, British soldiers responded by setting a fire to drive them off and used the smoke to mask their movements. Bunker Hill was an early showcase for two long-running themes in American history — improvisation and how an inspired band of militias could hold their own against an army of professionals. 'It was a horrific bloodletting, and provided the British high command with proof that the Americans were going to be a lot more difficult to subdue than had been hoped,' says the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Rick Atkinson, whose second volume of a planned trilogy on the Revolution, 'The Fate of the Day,' was published in April. The battle was born in part out of error; rebels were seeking to hold off a possible British attack by fortifying Bunker Hill, a 110-foot-high (34-meter-high) peak in Charlestown across the Charles River from British-occupied Boston. But for reasons still unclear, they instead armed a smaller and more vulnerable ridge known as Breed's Hill, 'within cannon shot of Boston,' Philbrick says. 'The British felt they had no choice but to attack and seize the American fort.' Abigail Adams, wife of future President John Adams, and son John Quincy Adams, also a future president, were among thousands in the Boston area who looked on from rooftops, steeples and trees as the two sides fought with primal rage. A British officer would write home about the 'shocking carnage' left behind, a sight 'that never will be erased out of my mind 'till the day of my death.' The rebels were often undisciplined and disorganized and they were running out of gunpowder. The battle ended with them in retreat, but not before the British had lost more than 200 soldiers and sustained more than 1,000 casualties, compared to some 450 colonial casualties and the destruction of hundreds of homes, businesses and other buildings in Charlestown. Bunker Hill would become characteristic of so much of the Revolutionary War: a technical defeat that was a victory because the British needed to win decisively and the rebels needed only not to lose decisively. 'Nobody now entertains a doubt but that we are able to cope with the whole force of Great Britain, if we are but willing to exert ourselves,' Thomas Jefferson wrote to a friend in early July. 'As our enemies have found we can reason like men, now let us show them we can fight like men also.'