Hong Kong urged to improve transparency after Bloomberg journalist Haze Fan denied visa without reason
Hong Kong Free Press
A foreign press club in Hong Kong has called on the government to improve transparency over media worker visa denials, after Bloomberg said Chinese journalist Haze Fan’s application was rejected without explanation.
The Immigration Department should conduct an “urgent review” of its decision to deny Fan a work visa, The Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCC) in Hong Kong said in a statement on Thursday.
Bloomberg’s Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait told staff via an internal notice on Monday that the media company had wanted Fan to join the Hong Kong bureau. But after her visa was denied by the city’s immigration authorities without explanation, she was placed in the London newsroom instead. Fan had resumed her duties at the US media outlet after being detained in China.
The FCC said it had reached out to the department to ask it to “improve transparency in respect of any denial of work visas in this and in other similar cases.”
“Whilst we request an urgent review of this decision, a proper explanation for any future denial of work visas or entry into Hong Kong by journalists is a necessary improvement to the system, and would positively impact the public and international perception of Hong Kong as a business centre,” the FCC’s statement read.
The Immigration Department told HKFP on Tuesday that it “will not comment on individual cases,” adding that the department “acts in accordance with the laws and policies in handling each application.”
In December 2020, Fan, then a staff member at the Bloomberg’s bureau in Beijing, was seen being escorted from her apartment building by plainclothes security officials. She was formally arrested in July 2021 on suspicion of committing crimes endangering national security.
The journalist, who had also worked for Reuters, CBS News and CNBC, was released on bail in January 2022. Bloomberg said in a news report that it was only made aware of her release months later. “We are encouraged that Haze is out on bail,” Micklethwait said in the report.
Fan’s visa denial was not the first in Hong Kong. In 2020, Hong Kong Free Press was denied a work visa, without reason, for an Irish journalist who had been working for Bloomberg. The New York Times’s Chris Buckley was also denied a visa in 2020, after Victor Mallet of the Financial Times had an application rejected in 2018.
A reporter from The Economist was also denied a visa in 2021 without reason.
Hong Kong has plummeted in international press freedom indices since the onset of the security law. Watchdogs cite the arrest of journalists, raids on newsrooms and the closure of around 10 media outlets including Apple Daily, Stand News and Citizen News. Over 1,000 journalists have lost their jobs, whilst many have emigrated. Meanwhile, the city’s government-funded broadcaster RTHK has adopted new editorial guidelines, purged its archives and axed news and satirical shows.
See also: Explainer: Hong Kong’s press freedom under the national security law
In 2022, Chief Executive John Lee said press freedom was “in the pocket” of Hongkongers but “nobody is above the law.” Although he has told the press to “tell a good Hong Kong story,” government departments have been reluctant to respond to story pitches.
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