Journalists in Hong Kong have for a long time been predicting the demise of press freedom, claiming that certain actions taken by the government would create a chilling effect on the press, silencing them like “cicadas in the winter”, as the Chinese saying goes.

Today, it is plain to see that, even with the enactment of the national security law, the cicadas are still as strident as ever. The anti-government media, both print and electronic, is very much alive, unlike in Taiwan, where a major pro-China broadcaster has just had its licence revoked. The Post still regularly runs articles that are highly critical of the central government.

In his column “ To stay in Hong Kong or go? Beijing’s latest ruling reignites the dilemma” (November 17), your senior writer Peter Kammerer fears that to have journalists pointing out the mistakes of a dishonest government would now amount to a national security violation.