In 2013, whistle-blower Edward Snowden chose Hong Kong as his first port of call upon fleeing the United States and for the scene of a series of interviews on NSA infringements of Americans’ civil rights.

Now, whether you consider Snowden a United States traitor or freedom of speech hero, his choice of the city was certainly a vote of confidence as far as free press is concerned, especially given the high stakes nature of his situation. Alas, Hong Kong is no longer a symbol of liberalism, free thought and safe haven for dissidents it once was.

As he noted the city has “a spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent.” Snowden also went to great lengths to stress that his presence in Hong Kong wasn’t a vote of confidence in China. Rather it was Hong Kong’s unique constitution, its Basic Law, “one country, two systems” model and “high degree of autonomy” that made Snowden feel secure in giving his interviews from Tsim Tsa Tsui’s Mira Hotel. Analysts at the time also noted that although the United States then had an extradition treaty with Hong Kong – since scrapped in light of the National Security Law – it was unlikely that they would request one through fear of souring bilateral relations.

Oh, how things have changed. In the less than eight years since Snowden’s famous stopover, “one country, two systems” is in tatters, Basic Law has been bypassed by a deliberately vague and overreaching National Security Law and Hong Kong’s autonomy is evaporating by the day. All of it adds up to a rapidly shrinking safe space for journalists.

The banning of reporters from courtrooms during sections of the National Security Law trials last week was another chilling harbinger to even more attacks on press freedom as the curtain is slowly drawn on Hong Kong as we know it.

By its very existence, the NSL had already placed Hong Kong’s cherished independent judiciary under threat. Hong Kong’s British-style courts, which were free of political interference and given the clear separation of powers, were the bedrock of the city’s autonomy and one of the main points of difference with the mainland. Another key difference was its vibrant and diverse free press. The Hong Kong Police Force had been doing Beijing’s political bidding out on the streets – not only in their suppressing of protesters but deliberate targeting of journalists – but so long as the courts held strong, and could be reported from, there was hope.

The NSL changed that and last week’s hearings were a new low for a regime that seems it won’t be content until Hong Kong is fully assimilated on all fronts.

Not only were the courts placed under new political pressures by the NSL, there seemed a clear case of contempt of court by Xia Baolong. The head of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office was quoted in pro-Beijing magazine Bauhinia calling Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai, activist Joshua Wong and former HKU legal scholar Benny Tai “vicious traitors” and called for their “severe punishment.” Never mind that cases are yet to be finished; all three pro-democracy figures are behind bars, with NSL charges pending for Lai and Tai, and charges expected against Wong.

Prior to the implementation of NSL the Hong Kong Police Force had already made journalism a hazardous vocation. It sometimes felt that wearing a yellow vest marked “PRESS” during the 2019 protests just made it easier for some trigger-happy cop to use you for target practice with his sponge grenades or pepper balls. At times it felt safer to simply wear street clothes, albeit not black.

Even before that the expulsion of Financial Times Asia editor and Foreign Correspondents’ Club vice-president Victor Mallet was a sign of Hong Kong’s already deteriorating press freedom.

Hong Kong ranked 80th in the Reporters Without Borders 2020 World Press Freedom Index, dropping seven places, and that ranking will plummet once again this year.

The implementation of NSL has expedited the erosion of press freedom and major news outlets have moved to or are considering other Asian bases for bureaus.

Apple Daily itself was the subject of a raid by more than 200 police officers. The BBC is no longer broadcast in the city, RTHK has been targeted on numerous fronts and pro-democracy websites have already been blocked using NSL. Hong Kong’s “Mainlandisation” has been hastened and the final frontier of internet privacy laws, blocking of sites and mass censorship looms as the next on the agenda for Beijing.

Less than a decade since Edward Snowden dropped the biggest news story in the world in Kowloon, the uncertainty and lack of transparency of last week’s NSL hearings made it feel we are a terrifyingly short step away from the 99 percent conviction rates, forced confessions and black jails of China’s so-called legal system.

(Michael Cox is a journalist and Hong Kong permanent resident currently based in Australia. He has previously written for the South China Morning Post, The Age (Melbourne) and Australian Associated Press.)

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