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CNN
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A Wall Road Journal reporter in Hong Kong mentioned she was fired after being elected to steer a press union that has come beneath assault by Beijing amid a nationwide safety crackdown.

Selina Cheng, who was elected chair of the Hong Kong Journalists Affiliation (HKJA) on June 22, mentioned in an announcement posted Wednesday on X that she had been terminated from her job overlaying China’s automobile sector earlier within the day.

Her London-based supervisor at The Journal had requested her final month to withdraw from the election, she added.

“The editor mentioned staff of the Journal shouldn’t be seen as advocating for press freedom in a spot like Hong Kong, regardless that they will in Western international locations, the place it’s already established,” Cheng mentioned within the assertion.

She quoted her supervisor as saying having Journal staff advocate for media freedoms would create conflicts of curiosity as a result of the newspaper studies on associated subjects, together with the continued trials of Hong Kong journalists and media organizations.

“I’m disenchanted if these editors overseas have come to assume press freedom is a controversial difficulty, as those that want to intimidate reporters would possibly like us to consider,” she mentioned. “It’s not.”

The HKJA, a commerce union established in 1968, has come beneath growing stress from authorities lately. Each Hong Kong officers and Beijing state media have accused it of siding with protesters throughout the anti-government demonstrations in 2019, a cost the affiliation has denied.

For many years earlier than the protests, the group was seen as a thriving image of Hong Kong’s cherished private freedoms, which marked a pointy distinction with the extremely regulated media panorama in mainland China.

However critics have more and more bemoaned the territory’s shrinking press freedoms since Beijing imposed a nationwide safety on Hong Kong after the 2019 protests. They cite the closure of a number of information retailers and circumstances of editors being placed on trial. Amid a wider crackdown on civil liberties, many opposition figures had been rounded as much as face trial, with civil teams compelled to disband.

Cheng mentioned Gordon Fairclough, The Journal’s world protection chief, flew in from the UK to ship her dismissal in individual, explaining that her job had been eradicated as a result of restructuring.

In Might, The Journal’s editor-in-chief Emma Tucker introduced layoffs in Hong Kong as a part of a technique to shift the “middle of gravity within the area” to Singapore, she mentioned in an inner e mail seen by CNN. Cheng mentioned she had survived that spherical of cuts.

A spokesperson for The Journal confirmed to CNN that personnel modifications had been made on Wednesday however declined to touch upon particular people.

“The Wall Road Journal has been and continues to be a fierce and vocal advocate for press freedom in Hong Kong and world wide,” he mentioned.

For months, the newspaper has been working a worldwide marketing campaign calling for the discharge of Evan Gershkovich, a Journal reporter who has been detained in Russia for greater than a yr accused of spying for the CIA.

“Because of this I’m deeply shocked that senior editors on the paper would actively violate their staff’ human rights, by stopping them from advocating for freedoms the Journal’s reporters depend on to work, in a spot the place journalists and their rights are beneath menace,” Cheng wrote.

She plans to proceed to steer the HKJA.