Irish Journalist Denied Visa, Says HK Free Press

A Hong Kong news website on Thursday said authorities had denied a visa for an Irish journalist in what press groups described as an alarming acceleration of a government clampdown on the media.

The city has long been a major global media centre, but its reputation as a press haven is slipping as Beijing exerts greater control.

Journalists have been caught in spiralling China-US tensions, with both countries expelling reporters or placing limits on their numbers.

The latest case impacts a local, non-American news outlet.

Hong Kong Free Press said the Immigration Department had denied a visa for journalist Aaron Mc Nicholas "without any official reason" after nearly six months of waiting.

Mc Nicholas previously worked at Bloomberg – which has a regional headquarters in Hong Kong – and Storyful without visa issues.

"We are a local news outlet and our prospective editor was a journalist originally from Ireland, so this is not another tit-for-tat measure under the US-China trade dispute," Hong Kong Free Press editor-in-chief Tom Grundy said in a statement.

"It appears we have been targeted under the climate of the new security law and because of our impartial and fact-based coverage."

The Immigration Department did not respond to media enquiries about the case.

Cedric Alviani, East Asia bureau head of Reporters Without Borders, said the visa rejection was "another sign of the recent acceleration of press freedom's decline" since the security law was imposed.

In July, The New York Times said it was moving a third of its Hong Kong-based personnel to South Korea because of concerns over the new national security law and sudden difficulties obtaining visas for multiple staff.

The city's foreign press club said multiple news outlets were also facing "highly unusual" visa delays with authorities yet to offer any explanation. (AFP)