HONG KONG: China’s national security agency in Hong Kong summoned international media representatives for a “regulatory talk” on Saturday, saying some had spread false information and smeared the government in recent reports on a deadly fire and upcoming legislative elections.
Senior journalists from several major outlets operating in the city, including AFP, were summoned to the meeting by the Office for Safeguarding National Security (OSNS), which was opened in 2020 following Beijing’s imposition of a wide-ranging national security law on the city.
Through the OSNS, Beijing’s security agents operate openly in Hong Kong, with powers to investigate and prosecute national security crimes.
“Recently, some foreign media reports on Hong Kong have disregarded facts, spread false information, distorted and smeared the government’s disaster relief and aftermath work, attacked and interfered with the Legislative Council election, (and) provoked social division and confrontation,” an OSNS statement posted online shortly after the meeting said.
At the meeting, an official who did not give his name read out a similar statement to media representatives.
He did not give specific examples of coverage that the OSNS had taken issue with, and did not take questions.
The online OSNS statement urged journalists to “not cross the legal red line.”
“The Office will not tolerate the actions of all anti-China and trouble-making elements in Hong Kong, and ‘don’t say we didn’t warn you’,” it read.
For the past week and a half, news coverage in Hong Kong has been dominated by a deadly blaze on a residential estate which killed at least 159 people.
Authorities have warned against crimes that “exploit the tragedy” and have reportedly arrested at least three people for sedition in the fire’s aftermath.
Dissent in Hong Kong has been all but quashed since Beijing brought in the national security law, after huge and sometimes violent protests in 2019.
Hong Kong’s electoral system was revamped in 2021 to ensure that only “patriots” could hold office, and the upcoming poll on Sunday will select a second batch of lawmakers under those rules.
China’s national security agency in Hong Kong summons international media representatives
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China’s national security agency in Hong Kong summons international media representatives
Israeli strike kills 3 journalists in Gaza, as media watchdog reports near-record number in jail
- Mohammed Salah Qashta, Abdul Raouf Shaat and Anas Ghneim were using a drone camera to document aid distribution when a vehicle was targeted
- Deaths coincide with publication of a Committee to Protect Journalists report that reveals 330 journalists are imprisoned worldwide
LONDON: An Israeli airstrike killed three journalists in Gaza on Wednesday, the territory’s civil defense agency said. Their deaths came as a report revealed the number of journalists imprisoned worldwide remains close to a record high.
The agency said the bodies of Mohammed Salah Qashta, Abdul Raouf Shaat and Anas Ghneim were taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah following the airstrike in Al-Zahra, southwest of Gaza City.
Shaat had regularly contributed photographs and video footage to Agence France-Presse, though he was not on assignment at the time, the news agency said.
The Israeli military said its troops had identified “several suspects who operated a drone affiliated with Hamas” in central Gaza and attacked them because of the threat they posed. The details were under review, it added.
An eyewitness said the journalists were using a drone to document the distribution of aid by the Egyptian Relief Committee in the Gaza Strip when a strike hit one of the committee’s vehicles.
“A vehicle belonging to the Egyptian Committee was targeted during a humanitarian mission, resulting in the martyrdom of three individuals,” said Mohammed Mansour, a spokesperson for the organization.
All vehicles belonging to the committee bear its logo, he added, and he accused Israeli soldiers of “criminally” targeting the vehicle.
Meanwhile, a newly published report by the Committee to Protect Journalists stated that as of Dec. 1, 2025, 330 journalists were imprisoned worldwide, down from a record 384 at the end of 2024 but still close to historic highs.
Israel, which is holding 29 journalists, all of them Palestinians, ranked third on the list of countries with the most detained media workers, after China (50) and Myanmar (30). Nearly one in five jailed journalists reported they had been subjected to torture or beatings.
“Autocracies and democracies alike are locking up journalists to quash dissent and stifle independent reporting,” the committee’s CEO, Jodie Ginsberg, said.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said Israeli forces had killed at least 466 Palestinians since the ceasefire agreement took effect in November. The Committee to Protect Journalists reported that 127 journalists and other media workers were killed in the course of their work during 2025, the vast majority of them in Gaza.
* With agencies
