The New York Times is moving part of its Hong Kong office to Seoul amid growing concern about the impact of new national security laws on the freedom and security of the press.
The American outlet will move its digital equipment, about a third of its current Hong Kong office, to the capital of South Korea over the next year, he said. Correspondents and print production teams from the International New York Times, the European and Asian edition of the newspaper, will stay in Hong Kong.
Staff were informed of the move in a memo from editors and executives on Tuesday.
“China’s new national security law in Hong Kong has created a lot of uncertainty about what the new rules will mean for our operation and our journalism,” he said. “We believe it is prudent to make contingency plans and start diversifying our publishing staff across the region.”
A New York Times report on the relocation said some of its employees had had trouble obtaining work permits, which had rarely been a problem in Hong Kong in the past.
“With the city facing a new era under strict Chinese rule, the editors of the Times determined that they needed an additional base of operations in the region,” he said.
On June 30, Beijing imposed extensive national security laws on Hong Kong, bypassing the semi-autonomous region’s own legislature, which prohibits subversion, sedition, terrorism and collusion. However, the laws have been criticized for being so broad and ill-defined that even the most benign acts supporting independence can be considered illegal.
The legality of journalistic practices in Hong Kong is also unclear, and consultations with the Hong Kong government have only generated warnings that the press will not be attacked as long as journalists comply with the new laws.
Hong Kong free press editor Tom Grundy wrote in The Guardian on Tuesday that the laws had been designed to have a negative effect on the media.
“The government will not give us direct answers to questions about the security law, and that is by design,” Grundy said. “Blur is a feature, not a mistake: Authorities want journalists to overcompensate, tiptoe around ill-defined red lines, and ultimately self-censor.”
Staff from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post were expelled from mainland China earlier this year, amid continued diplomatic hostilities against foreign media based in the United States and China.
“Hong Kong has been a leader in supporting the rights of a free press in Asia for decades, and it is essential that it continue to do so,” New York Times spokeswoman Ari Isaacman Bevacqua said.
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