A former editor of the Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao was attacked two weeks ago as he got out of his car near his home in a residential neighborhood of the city. He was stabbed two times in his leg and one in his back with a cleaver. The attacker was wearing a helmet and ran away in a motorcycle with an accomplice.

“One of them alighted from the motorcycle and used a chopper to attack the victim,” police spokesman Simon Kwan said at a news conference outside the hospital where the journalist underwent emergency surgery.

It remains unclear, however, whether the attack was carried out due to Mr. Pao’s journalistic work, even if many journalists believed there is a link between the attack and Mr. Pao’s reports.

Lau was famous for his critical reporting and involvement in political investigations. When he was the editor of Ming Pao, Lau contributed to a report by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists that revealed offshore possessions of China’s elite, including relatives of President Xi Jinping and former Premier Wen Jiabao.

Mr. Lau was dismissed from his role as chief editor of the daily Ming Pao in January and named chief operating ooficer of MediaNet Resources, a subsidiary of the Ming Pao. He was replaced by Chong Tien-siong, a Malasyan editor who agrees more on Beijing politics than Mr. Lau.

His removal has provoked protests and revolts in the Ming Pao newsroom and has raised concernes about press freedom declining in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Journalists Association has reported various violent attacks on Hong Kong journalists in the past year.

Journalists from the Ming Pao claim that the paper’s editorial independence is being undermined, since media owners prioritize business interests in China, especially in Beijing, over press freedom. Ming Pao’s owner is a Malasian timber tycoon who carries out numerous businesses in China. Many local journalists have alleged that Mr. Lau’s dismissal was due to his pursue of corruption and his reports on human-rights abuses that were embarrassing to Beijing.

The attack took place days after 6,000 journalists protested in front of Hong Kong’s government headquarters to demand fuller democracy and press freedom, as well as greater autonomy from Beijing.

“Freedom of press and speech in Hong Kong is increasingly under pressure,” Bruce Lui, a journalism lecturer at Hong Kong Baptist University and a former television reporter, told BBC.

“Especially since the second half of last year, it’s happening more frequently and with increasing force. We believe these are not individual cases. It appears someone has a whole plan to censor the Hong Kong media.”

Hong Kong has always followed a more capitalist path than Beijing and has enjoyed a high degree of independence from Beijing, but Beijing’s Communist Party leaders have lately been reluctant to increase Hong Kong’s autonomy.

During these past two weeks, there have been concerns about whether there would be justice or not for the attack on the former editor.

The South China Morning Post reports that the police have repeatedly failed to solve previous cases of attacks to journalists. However, both Hong Kong’s chief executive, Leung Chun-Ying, and the United States consul general in Hong Kong, Clifford A. Hart Jr., are confident that the assaulters will be arrested.

However, nine men have been recently arrested over the stabbing of the journalist, Hong Kong police say.

Two of them are believed to have links to crime organizations.

According to the police, after the attack two men fled to the southern Chinese province of Guangdong and have been detained there. Hong Kong officials are now tramitting their return, BBC reporter Juliana Liu reports.

The other seven men have been arrested in Hong Kong accused of helping to plan the attack.

“We suspect the assailants were hired and they have a triad background,” Hong Kong police commissioner Andy Tsang told BBC, referring to organised Chinese criminal gangs.

“We will not rule out any motive at the moment, but according to the information at hand there is nothing to suspect it is related to journalism at all,” he said of the attack, adding that investigations were continuing.