A History of Student Publications and Campus Speech at CityU — From the Editorial Board to Publishing Tensions in a Sensitive Era

City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK) Integrated Information Database · Student Movements module

Reading note (wild-history section): This article belongs to the Student Movements module and is written to an evidence standard, with every assertion tied to a primary source. Where it touches specific actions during the 2019 social movement period, this article cites only facts already extensively reported. Entries related to national-security investigations are linked from this module's README directory.

This piece focuses on turning points in student publications and campus speech; the organisational history of the CityU Students' Union itself — including the 2015 referendum to withdraw from the Hong Kong Federation of Students and the 2022 change in the union's relationship with the university — is covered in the companion article A History of the CityU Students' Union and the 2015 Withdrawal from the Federation of Students.

---

One-line summary: The Editorial Board of the City University of Hong Kong Students' Union has published City University Monthly since 1985^※ (the year after the university's founding), forming a two-outlet oversight structure together with City Broadcasting Channel. Over four decades the outlets navigated a defamation suit tied to the Democracy Wall, the closure of the MFA programme, a dispute over pro-independence banners, and the arrest of a student journalist, before the 2022 removal of the Democracy Wall and the union's relocation sharply narrowed the space available to campus media.

---

A wall, a monthly magazine, a press card — these are three objects through which to understand the history of campus speech at CityU. In 1985, one year after the founding of what was then the City Polytechnic of Hong Kong, a group of students started City University Monthly. Around the same time, a noticeboard modelled on the spirit of Beijing's Democracy Wall was installed beside the university library, becoming a physical space where students could post their views. Four decades later, that wall has been dismantled, the Monthly's on-campus printing channel was cut off when the students' union relocated, and the press card of the era did not spare a student journalist from being charged four years later. This article follows that arc from expansion to contraction, reconstructing each verifiable turning point in turn.

# When did CityU's student publications begin?

Student media at the City University of Hong Kong (formerly the City Polytechnic of Hong Kong, founded in 1984^※) appeared relatively early. According to the list of Hong Kong student publications in the Wikipedia entry "学生报"^※, City University Monthly, published by the CityU Students' Union Editorial Board (hereafter "the Editorial Board"), was launched in 1985^※ — just one year after the university's founding, and earlier than the CityU Students' Union itself, formally established in 1986^※. This suggests the Editorial Board, as a student media body, held a fairly independent and self-initiated institutional standing from the outset. City University Monthly was distributed free on campus as a monthly and is CityU's longest-running student publication.

By comparison, student newspapers at Hong Kong's older institutions have decades of longer history: HKU's Undergrad was founded in 1952^※ and CUHK's student paper in 1969^※. That CityU, as a newer institution, launched a publication the year after its founding reflects the active atmosphere on Hong Kong campuses in the 1980s.

# How did the two-outlet oversight structure of the Editorial Board and City Broadcasting operate?

The CityU Students' Union operates under a "separation of five powers" organisational structure, in which the Editorial Board and City Broadcasting Channel (CBC) sit as two media bodies among five central organisations, positioned in a "dual oversight" role — operating independently through print and broadcast respectively to monitor and report on the union's internal affairs and campus public issues. Both are structurally independent of the executive committee and not subject to direction by the union's administrative branch, reflecting the emphasis on editorial autonomy found in Hong Kong's student-media tradition; that autonomy has, however, faced external pressure at various points.

# The 1994 Democracy Wall defamation case: the earliest documented legal tension

CityU has a Democracy Wall, located on the third floor of Academic Building One, adjacent to the university library^※, owned and managed by the students' union. The wall was set up in the spirit of Beijing's 1978 Democracy Wall^※, allowing students, alumni, and staff to freely post personal views. It represents a campus speech space distinct from student publications, and is also the site of the earliest recorded speech dispute at CityU.

In 1994^※, material posted on the Democracy Wall gave rise to a defamation dispute: a law student sued an accountancy student over defamatory content posted on the wall — alleging the content accused him of criminal conduct and dishonesty — and won. The defendant was ordered to pay HK$75,000^※ (1994 value) in damages. This is the earliest verifiable case in which speech on CityU's campus produced legal consequences, and it established the practical boundary that the Democracy Wall permits free speech but does not exempt speakers from legal liability.

The Democracy Wall relocated to its current site in 2003^※, after which it became a recurring site of postings and disputes tied to political events.

# The 2015 closure of the MFA creative-writing programme: an early signal in the climate for campus speech

In April 2015^※, CityU announced the closure of its Master of Fine Arts in creative writing, a programme in English founded in 2010^※ by the writer Xu Xi — Asia's first low-residency MFA focused on English-language writing by Asian writers. The university cited "insufficient enrolment and financial difficulty." More than twenty internationally known authors^※, including Pulitzer Prize winners Junot Díaz, Rae Armantrout, and Robert Olen Butler, signed a joint letter to CityU's administration. Canadian novelist and programme faculty member Madeleine Thien wrote in The Guardian attributing the closure to "a narrowing of free expression and censorship pressure in Hong Kong." This closure did not directly involve the student press, but it occurred roughly half a year after the end of the 2014 Umbrella Movement, and is an early, verifiable signal of a narrowing climate for campus speech at CityU.

# The 2017 pro-independence banner incident: a dispute over the Democracy Wall's editorial autonomy

In September 2017^※, banners and posters advocating Hong Kong independence appeared on the Democracy Walls and noticeboards of several Hong Kong universities, CityU among them. After similar wording appeared on CityU's Democracy Wall, university security staff removed the material.

The CityU Students' Union issued a statement characterising the university's action as interference with student autonomy: "When the school removed the words 'Hong Kong independence' from the noticeboard … this violated not only the mutual trust between the students' union and the school, but also the freedom of CityU students." The statement further noted that the material complied with the union's own rules on Democracy Wall postings; university security had said the student ID number of the person who posted it could not be found, a claim the union disputed.

Students' unions at CityU, Lingnan University, PolyU, EdUHK, the Open University, Hang Seng Management College, and CUHK^※ — seven institutions in total — subsequently issued a joint open letter characterising the removal of independence-related material by their respective administrations as a "serious erosion of academic autonomy." This is one of the rare recorded instances in the Editorial Board's history in which CityU joined other institutions in a coordinated public protest against administrative interference.

# 2019: a student journalist reported with a press card, and was still prosecuted

During the 2019 anti-extradition-bill movement, student journalists from CityU's Editorial Board engaged with events on the ground with unprecedented intensity. According to an HKFP report of 28 August 2019^※, CityU student Wong Ka-ho was arrested while covering events at the Legislative Council building on 1 July 2019^※ and charged with "criminal damage." Editorial Board editor-in-chief Adrian Ho confirmed to Ming Pao that the student had been reporting continuously on the protests since June and was wearing a press pass and reflective vest that day. The specific basis for the "criminal damage" charge — which surfaced only once the trial began — was that he had picked up a copy of the Basic Law that had already been torn, lying on the ground, in order to photograph it more clearly; this detail is the direct basis on which the prosecution was long criticised as "disproportionate to his conduct as a journalist." The case went to trial in May 2023, nearly four years later^※, with the prosecution acknowledging his press status for the first time; he was ultimately fined HK$1,500^※ for unlawful entry into the Legislative Council. The case illustrates a structural difficulty: a student-media press pass does not carry the same legal standing as accreditation from a professional outlet, and the Editorial Board's formal status did not provide its reporters with adequate legal protection. Wong Ka-ho and a second defendant, Ma Kai-chung, were among the first people with press credentials to be prosecuted over the 2019 protests. According to a July 2024 interview with The Hong Konger^※, he said he considered the case "highly politicised" and was concerned that a conviction could be used by the authorities to advance a "fake news law"; after sentencing he left for Canada to seek asylum.

# 2021: the Goddess of Democracy statue removed over "National Security Law risk"

One-line answer: CityU's Goddess of Democracy statue survived being damaged in 2019, only to be withdrawn and put into storage by the students' union itself, more than two years later, after a verbal warning from the university.

The statue, jointly made by six graduates of art schools and standing for nearly a decade, saw its fate turn abruptly at the end of 2021. On 24 December 2021^※, following HKU's removal of the "Pillar of Shame," CUHK and Lingnan University removed their respective Goddess of Democracy statues and June Fourth reliefs the same morning, in a coordinated action. According to Epoch Times reporting, CityU's administration then issued the students' union a verbal warning that displaying the Goddess of Democracy statue "might possibly violate the National Security Law," and cited the expiry of the display permit as grounds for asking the union to remove it. The acting president of the CityU Students' Union subsequently confirmed that the union was awaiting formal written notice from the university and expected to comply by withdrawing the statue, to be kept by the union itself to prevent further damage.

It is worth noting that the grounds cited by the university were not "criminal damage" or public-order concerns — that had been the rationale in 2019 — but the statue's own displayed content, said to touch on National Security Law red lines; the expired permit served as the procedural pretext. Around the same time, PolyU's statue, cracked, had already been removed for repair in October of that year, with the university likewise stating it had "never approved" its long-term display; PolyU's students' union president said that, seeing other institutions remove similar memorial statues one after another, "the situation is now more complicated," and that internal discussion would be needed before deciding whether to redisplay it. The fate of a single object moved from a public-order matter in 2019 to a political-statement matter in 2021 — itself a microcosm of the broader trajectory of narrowing campus speech.

# 2022: the Democracy Wall dismantled and the sudden contraction of campus media space

On 14 February 2022^※, the students' union held a farewell ceremony before being forced to vacate its on-campus premises. According to reports, some students crossed the barrier in front of the Democracy Wall during the ceremony to post sticky notes reading phrases such as "support democracy." On 21 February 2022^※, the police National Security Department began investigating content that appeared during the ceremony; per this module's rules, this article does not narrate the details of that investigation — related source links are in this module's README. The specifics of the eviction itself (the audit-report requirement, the seven-day deadline to vacate) are covered in the companion article A History of the CityU Students' Union and the 2015 Withdrawal from the Federation of Students.

According to the Chinese-language Wikipedia entry for CityU^※, CityU's Democracy Wall was dismantled by the university administration in February 2022^※, ending nearly two decades of operation since its 2003 relocation. According to a 2024 photo retrospective by The Collective HK^※, citing reporting by CityU's own student outlet City Broadcasting, the university dismantled the Democracy Wall shortly after reclaiming the students' union premises; a reporter who later visited the site found "only the frame remains" — the wall's structural skeleton still stands, but its posting function has ceased entirely. The disappearance of the Democracy Wall marks the formal end of the most significant physical public-speech space on campus that had been managed by the students' union.

After the students' union was relocated off campus, the on-campus operating basis (including premises, printing resources, and on-campus distribution channels) that publications such as City University Monthly, published by the Editorial Board, had relied on was severely affected. Whether the Editorial Board has been able to continue operating as a media body off campus is not clearly documented in currently available sources; this database records that gap as it stands.

# In territory-wide context: only 4 of 12 institutions still have a Democracy Wall

One-line answer: the fate of CityU's Democracy Wall is not an isolated event. According to a 2024 field survey, of Hong Kong's 12 tertiary institutions, 8 now have Democracy Walls that are disused or exist in name only, and only 4 remain operational.

Based on a 2024 photo retrospective by The Collective HK^※, whose reporters visited each campus in person: HKU, HKUST, Hang Seng University, and Metropolitan University retain operational Democracy Walls; CUHK, CityU, PolyU, EdUHK, Lingnan University, Shue Yan University, and St. Francis University have discontinued theirs — seven institutions — and together with Baptist University make eight where the wall exists in name only, though the circumstances differ: CUHK's Democracy Wall remains fenced off with barriers and its surface blank; Lingnan's former site has been converted to a university promotional banner; EdUHK's Democracy Wall disappeared after the university stopped recognising the students' union's status in January 2022; PolyU dismantled its wall citing "renovation for the anniversary." CityU falls into the "frame only" category: the physical structure has not been fully cleared, but its posting and speech function exists in name only. This side-by-side comparison suggests that CityU's experience is fairly representative of a broader shift in campus governance across Hong Kong during the same period, rather than an extreme outlier.

# Where does the CityU case sit within the history of student media in Hong Kong?

CityU's student-media history is comparatively thin in volume, but the tension structure evident at its key turning points closely tracks the shared trajectory across Hong Kong universities. A September 2024 Human Rights Watch report^※ documented systemic restrictions across eight public universities in Hong Kong: "censorship of student publications, communications, and events," the dismantling or takeover of Democracy Walls by administrations, and student unions "no longer able to function effectively as elected representative bodies." CityU, as a younger institution with a comparatively thin documentary record, has no systematic archive currently available to cite for its publication content and Editorial Board internal discussions from the 1980s–2000s; this article records that gap as it stands.

# 2026: HKU's Undergrad ceases publication, the latest marker of a wider retreat in student media

One-line answer: in June 2026, Undergrad, Hong Kong's longest-running student newspaper at 74 years old, announced its closure — because two consecutive recruitment rounds failed to form a new editorial board, not because of direct action by the university.

According to an HKFP report of 29 June 2026^※, Undergrad, published under the HKU Students' Union, announced its immediate closure in a social-media post stating "the historical role of Undergrad comes to an end here," signed by the 2025 editorial board. According to a report by Dim Sum Daily^※, the editorial board publicly recruited for a 2026 board twice starting September 2025, and both attempts failed, leading to the decision to cease operations. Undergrad was founded in 1952, making it Hong Kong's longest-running student publication, more than thirty years older than CityU's Monthly. It generated controversy in 2014 and 2016 over articles touching on localist discourse, but the 2026 closure statement itself did not directly link the recruitment difficulty to outside pressure, and its wording leaned toward framing it as "a historical chapter having run its course."

Placing Undergrad alongside City University Monthly reveals two not-quite-identical paths of contraction: CityU's Democracy Wall, statue, and union premises were changed directly by specific administrative actions from the university (dismantling, a verbal warning, a deadline to vacate); HKU's Undergrad, on the surface, ceased through organisational attrition — "unable to recruit people" — with no public record of direct university intervention. The two paths diverge, but point toward the same outcome: the human and spatial base that campus media depends on to operate has, at this stage, been thinning on both fronts.

# Summary: from 1985 to 2026, a visible arc

The history of student publications at CityU traces the following verifiable outline:

• 1985^※: City University Monthly launched; the Editorial Board and City Broadcasting form the students' union's two-outlet oversight structure
• 1994^※: the Democracy Wall defamation case establishes the first legal boundary (HK$75,000 in damages)
• 2015^※: the MFA creative-writing programme closes; Pulitzer Prize winners sign a joint protest letter; viewed by international media as a signal of narrowing speech climate
• September 2017^※: pro-independence banners removed from the Democracy Wall; seven students' unions jointly protest an "erosion of academic autonomy"
• July–November 2019^※: an Editorial Board student journalist wearing a press pass covering the movement is arrested regardless; the case runs four years to a 2023 conclusion
• December 2021^※: the Goddess of Democracy statue withdrawn by the students' union itself after a university verbal warning that it "might possibly violate the National Security Law"
• February 2022^※: the students' union relocates; the Democracy Wall dismantled down to its bare frame; the physical base of campus media collapses
• June 2026^※: HKU's Undergrad ceases publication, extending the wider retreat of Hong Kong student media to its longest-running title

As a young institution founded only in 1984, CityU's documentary record in media history is thinner than that of HKU or CUHK; what this article presents is the historical outline that can be reconstructed within the range of currently verifiable sources, without filling gaps through speculation. The organisational history of the CityU Students' Union itself — including its 2015 withdrawal from the Federation of Students, the full course of the 2022 premises dispute, and comparison with the territory-wide wave of departures — is covered in the companion article A History of the CityU Students' Union and the 2015 Withdrawal from the Federation of Students; the union's current financial and audit dispute mechanisms are covered in Module 20, "Finances, Audits, and the Black-Box Disputes".

---