FCC Statement on HKJA chairperson Selina Cheng’s termination by The Wall Street Journal

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Hong Kong is deeply concerned by the news of Hong Kong Journalists Association chairperson Selina Cheng’s dismissal as an employee of The Wall Street Journal.

Ms Cheng said that senior editors at the paper asked her to withdraw from the HKJA’s recent election once they learned she was running to be the chairperson of the journalists’ union. When she refused, she said she was told that being HKJA’s chairperson would be incompatible with her job. Less than a month later, she was fired.

The FCC has reached out to The Wall Street Journal for comment and to ask why Ms Cheng’s employment was terminated.

Press freedom is enshrined in Article 27 of Hong Kong’s Basic Law, the same article that guarantees Hongkongers the right to form and join trade unions. Representing the rights of journalists, which includes defending freedom of the press, should not be controversial. The FCC fully supports The Wall Street Journal’s ongoing efforts to secure the freedom of its reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been unjustly imprisoned in Russia for more than a year. If the editors of the Journal advocate for reporters’ rights to do their jobs without fear and intimidation in Russia, they should do the same in Hong Kong.

We urge The Wall Street Journal and all news organisations to respect reporters’ rights to join press clubs and to advocate for press freedom without the fear of punitive action from their own newsrooms.