On the surface, Hong Kong remains a dazzling city and a successful financial hub with hundreds of thousands of visitors every year. However, local journalists and activists will tell you a very different story. In 2019-2020, Hong-Kong was swept up in a wave of protests in response to the draconian National Security Law introduced by China to end Hong Kong’s autonomy from the mainland. Despite the backlash, the bill became a reality. The wide list of provisions includes sending cases for trial in mainland China, holding trials behind closed doors and letting pro-Beijing legislators interpret the law - to name just a few. Moreover, incorporated into the law is Article 23 that criminalises everything that it deems as secession, subversion, extremism and collusion with foreign or external forces. In 2021, two of the largest outlets Apple Daily and Stand News, became the first victims and were forced to shut down. Many more independent media outlets closed since then fearing repercussions. Hundreds of journalists covering the Umbrella protests were beaten and detained. A group of pro-democracy campaigners ‘Hong-Kong 47’ were charged with sedition and most of them are still awaiting sentencing.

In this episode of Trouble with the Truth, Lana talks to a Hong-Kong based journalist who preferred to remain anonymous. They tell us about the chilling effect of the NSL on Hong-Kong’s once thriving media and their own trauma at witnessing their offices being raided by police. They also discuss how the nature of journalism has changed since the introduction of the law and why there is still a strong appetite for honest reporting.

On 30 May, a new report produced by the digital rights organisation Access Now and Citizen Lab revealed the details of the latest Pegasus attack on Russian and Belarusian journalists and activists. Pegasus, a sophisticated spyware made by Israel’s NSO Group made headlines in 2021 when it was discovered to have been targeted at thousands of people from all over the globe, including human rights activists and media workers. What makes this spyware so dangerous is that it doesn’t require clicking on a link and some victims may never discover that they’ve been hacked. It can penetrate IOS and Android systems and gain full access to a device- including photos, passwords emails and even microphone.

In this episode of Trouble with the Truth, Lana talks to Natalia Krapiva, the Senior Tech-Legal Counsel at Access Now about the latest targets of Pegasus attacks. Among them: the CEO of Novaya Gazeta, Maria Epifanova, journalists Evgeny Pavlov and Evgeny Erlikh, Belarusian activist Andrei Sannikovand, and the editor-in-chief of independent Belarusian media website Charter97.org - Natallia Radzina. They discuss what makes Pegasus so hard to identify and who could be behind it - while Russian and Belarusian authorities are the most obvious suspects, the truth is more complex. Finally, Natalia shares some useful advice on how journalists can protect themselves from spyware and what steps they should take if they discover they’ve been hacked.

Useful resources:
Access Now Digital Security helpline: https://www.accessnow.org/help/
Citizen Lab Tools & Resources: https://citizenlab.ca/category/research/tools-resources/
Justice for Journalists Media Safety Academy: https://jfj.academy/en/

Online harassment, intimidation, lack of access, government monopolies on media - we’re used to seeing such offences in countries with poor media freedom records. But what if all this was happening right on our doorstep, here in Europe? In this episode of Trouble with the Truth, Lana discusses the declining state of media freedoms in the EU with Oliver Money-Kyrle, the Head of Europe Advocacy and Programmes at the International Press Institute. They talk about the gap between the values projected by European institutions and the reality faced by independent journalists - from media capture and unregulated AI to malicious lawsuits and the dangerous anti-press rhetoric from right-wing politicians. And most importantly: what’s being done on the individual and institutional level to combat these challenges?