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Hong Kong pro-democracy media outlet Citizen News has said that its decision to shut down was prompted by the crackdown on fellow independent media outlet Stand News.
Citizen News on Sunday Night announced it is closing its operations, Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP) reported. The announcement comes at a time when Hong Kong authorities are facing flak for quashing press freedom. Addressing reporters the morning after the shutdown was announced, Citizen News said that the outlet could no longer gauge where the "legal boundaries" were. "We cannot rule out [the possibility] that our reports or articles in the past few years" have broken laws, Yeung said on Monday. He added that the outlet had not been approached by law enforcement, but that he heard "directly and indirectly" that online media outlets were being targeted. "Journalists are people too. [They] also have family and friends... it's very hard to carry on like this," Yeung said. Founded in 2017 on the back of a successful crowdfunding campaign, Citizen News was one of Hong Kong's few remaining independent media publications. Its financial independence, Yeung said, allowed the outlet to pursue critical investigations into corporate and government wrongdoing. According to CNN, Citizen News was the largest remaining independent news outlet in Hong Kong following the shuttering of Apple Daily in June and Stand News last Wednesday. On December 29 2021, the arrests and raid on the offices of the now-defunct news outlet Stand News attracted condemnation from the United Nations, the European Union as well as other countries including the US, Germany and Canada. Seven-year-old pro-democracy digital news outlet saw seven people connected to it arrested by national security police over suspected conspiracy to publish seditious materials, including its top editor, former editor-in-chief, his wife, as well as four former directors, Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP) reported. In recent months, crackdowns against news organisations and pro-democracy activists have intensified. In June 2021, Apple Daily witnessed similar actions by authorities. It was later shut down. Just after the raid on the newsroom of Apple Daily, Stand News removed all opinion pieces from their website in June. It also halted donations as six of the board's eight members stepped down. (ANI)
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