Global Courant
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HONG KONG (AP) – A Japanese journalist was banned from entering Hong Kong for no apparent reason and was sent back to his country, a Japanese newspaper said, citing concerns over declining press freedom in the city.
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The Japan Times, a leading English-language newspaper, reported on Friday that a freelance journalist was taken to a room by officials after arriving at the city’s airport on Thursday night. Yoshiaki Ogawa, known for his financial center reporting, was later interviewed for about an hour, it said.
Ogawa said officials only told him he could not get permission to stay in the city and that he was being sent back to Tokyo on Friday, the report said.
It “really made me feel how Hong Kong has changed … this would have been unthinkable before,” Ogawa said in the report.
In an email response to the Associated Press, the Hong Kong Immigration Department did not confirm the events and declined to comment on individual cases. It added that the department acts in accordance with laws and policies when handling any immigration case.
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The denial of entry has raised concerns about the encroachment on press freedom in Hong Kong, which was once a hallmark of the former British colony.
Hong Kong returned to China’s rule in 1997 and was promised the right to retain its Western freedoms for 50 years after handover, but the press scene shrank dramatically after the enactment of a national security law imposed by Beijing in 2020.
The law was introduced after the 2019 pro-democracy protests and has prosecuted many leading Hong Kong activists, including Jimmy Lai, the founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily, and other top executives at the paper.
The Japan Times said Ogawa has been closely following issues in Hong Kong since 2014 and reported on the 2019 movement, but did not plan to write anything about the city during his trip.
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Media rights group Reporters Without Borders tweeted Friday that it was shocked by Ogawa’s ordeal.
Hong Kong was ranked 140th out of 180 countries and territories in the group’s latest World Press Freedom Index published in May. The watchdog said the city has experienced an unprecedented setback since 2020 when the security law was introduced.
In January, the Hong Kong Journalists Association reported that Japan-based photographer Michiko Kiseki was banned from entering the city by the end of 2022. The association said it had reported on the 2019 protests and was approached by authorities about its exhibition in Japan.
