Hong Kong journalist to sue Wall Street Journal over sacking
Selina Cheng says she was fired after being warned not to run for journalists' union leadership job.
A Hong Kong journalist fired by the Wall Street Journal after she was elected leader of a local journalists' union lodged a legal challenge with the city’s labor tribunal on Tuesday.
Selina Cheng, who says she was let go as part of “restructuring” in July after being warned against seeking election as chairman of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, is filing a case with the tribunal after her request for reinstatement was unsuccessful.
“I was fired by the Wall Street Journal because of my position as chairman of the Journalists Association,” Cheng told reporters, accompanied by her lawyer, on Tuesday. “I have tried to communicate with and seek mediation with the company’s U.S. representatives via my lawyer but this was ineffective.”
“The other party continues to insist that my dismissal was part of layoffs, and reject my request for reinstatement,” she said.
Cheng won the election to replace Ronson Chan, who stepped down from the union leadership citing threats and pressure from pro-China sources.
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Officials in China and Hong Kong have repeatedly claimed that journalists are safe to carry out “legitimate” reporting activities under both the 2020 National Security Law and the Article 23 Safeguarding National Security Law, which was passed on March 23.
But pro-democracy media magnate Jimmy Lai is currently on trial for “collusion with foreign forces” for printing articles in his now-shuttered Apple Daily newspaper.
Ready to testify
Cheng said she had already filed some evidence for her claim to the Labor Department, and would be filing a formal complaint on Tuesday, under Section 21b of the city‘s Employment Ordinance, which protects employees’ right to join a labor union.
“Any employer, or any person acting on behalf of an employer, who prevents or deters ... an employee from exercising that right shall be guilty of an offense,” and could be fined up to HK$100,000 (US$12,855), according to the law.
“I have told the staff at the Labor Department that I am very willing to testify in court, and provide all the necessary information,” she said. “Since there is more than enough evidence to show they are in violation of the law, I think the government should actively prosecute them.”
Cheng, a Hong Kong correspondent for the Journal who had survived earlier rounds of layoffs, was approached by senior editors in June after they heard she was running in elections for the chair of the union, warned off running for the top job and told to leave the board, despite approving her position at the union when she was hired in 2021.
Cheng has quoted her editor as saying that Journal employees shouldn’t be seen as advocates for press freedom in a place like Hong Kong, although there was no problem with similar behaviors in Western countries where press freedom is greater. She has said she was fired in person by U.K.-based Foreign Editor Gordon Fairclough, who was on a visit to Hong Kong, with “restructuring” given as the reason for her sacking.
She said none of her colleagues believed that this was the real reason for her dismissal.
“I learned from former colleagues at Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal that they were all very disappointed, mainly because of the claim I was laid off,” Cheng said. “Everyone knows that this wasn’t the the truth, but the company continues to insist that this was the reason they fired me.”
Cheng said the incident had damaged her professional reputation, but that she was still open to discussions about her reinstatement.
State of press freedom
Journalists and media watchdog groups say press freedom has gone sharply downhill in Hong Kong in recent years, as Beijing ramps up its mission to protect “national security” with a constant expansion of forbidden topics and “red lines” in recent years.
Foreign journalists have also been targeted, with the city refusing to renew a work visa for the Financial Times' Victor Mallet in 2018 after he hosted pro-independence politician Andy Chan as a speaker at the Foreign Correspondents' Club where he was an official at the time.
The Independent Association of Publishers’ Employees, a union run by and for the employees of Dow Jones, has previously said that if Cheng was fired as what she claimed, the behavior was “unconscionable,” the Associated Press reported on Tuesday, adding that the association has called on the publication to restore her job and provide a full explanation of their decision to dismiss her.
Hong Kong ranked 135th out of 180 countries and territories in Reporters Without Borders’ latest World Press Freedom Index, down from 80 in 2021.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie.
