The editor and director of RTHK’s “Clang Collection”, Cai Yuling, was charged with two counts of misrepresentation for checking license plates during an interview and was found guilty yesterday and fined $6,000, becoming the first journalist guilty of checking the register. The magistrate stressed that the motive of Choi Yu-ling’s checklist was not important, echoing Carrie Lam’s claim that she did not know why journalists should have privileges. When a journalist’s act of checking the register is based on public interest, it is not the journalist who should be privileged, but the media who are exercising their monitoring power and fulfilling their monitoring responsibilities. This is not to close the loophole of the public’s privacy exposure, but the public’s right to know.
If the interview is guilty, monitoring is a capital offense
The motive of the Lam Cheng government to prosecute Chua Yu-ling is obvious to everyone. For one thing, the “7.21 Who Owns the Truth” program produced by Tsai Yu-ling is aimed at the truth of the 7.21 incident, which was a turning point in public opinion in the anti-sending campaign and, as the IPCC report points out, “became a powerful and enduring driving force for future demonstrations. However, the government later strongly denied the accusation of collusion between the police and the triads, and even turned the victims from plaintiffs to defendants. The “7.21 Who Owns the Truth”, which just won the Golden Yao Yu Press Freedom Award, is the media’s watchdog for truth-seeking, so it naturally became a thorn in the side of the Lam Cheng government.
Second, against the “Clang Collection” and other RTHK programs, against RTHK. The prosecution of Cai Yuling is a deterrent to RTHK personnel who have raised dissenting voices from time to time in the “Clanging Collection” and so on. But this intimidation, even if effective, will be delayed, therefore, the Lin Zheng government sent Li Baiquan to take over RTHK, directly and brutally pumped up the broadcast of “Clang Collection”, “Hong Kong Story”, “Deliberations” and other programs, not to mention not allowing Tsai Yuling, Li Junya, etc. to have a foothold in RTHK.
Third, for news interview tools, for freedom of the press, public monitoring. The register is an important way for the media and other institutions to carry out investigations, and its achievements in exposing incidents such as illegal construction of officials, election fraud, and the case of the set of Ding are well known. If the register has become what Mrs. Lam calls “weaponized,” it is also a weapon to expose bureaucratic corruption and malfeasance. As the HKJA’s statement points out, the court’s fine on Tsai Yuling is a fine on all journalists, and the Hong Kong government is objectively helping the powerful to cover up the facts.
Choi said she could not agree with the court’s decision to make journalists “guilty” of using them as a tool for investigating the truth, and firmly believed that “there is no crime in checking the register” and “there is no crime in freedom of the press”. This is the common voice of Hong Kong journalists with conscience. If journalism is a crime, is media monitoring not a capital crime? Under the guise of ruling Hong Kong by law, the Chinese Communist Party and the Hong Kong Communist Party are trying to silence Hong Kong journalists and let the outspoken media enforce their own laws through various legislative and judicial means.
The more extravagant the freedom, the more determined the pursuit
What is even more chilling is that in Hong Kong today, not only freedom of the press is being infringed upon, but also freedom of speech, academic freedom, the right to assemble and march, and the right to stand for election and to vote on one’s own. Freedom and the rule of law are both core values that Hong Kong people take pride in and are the pillars of Hong Kong as an international financial center. They permeate the daily lives of Hong Kong people and are taken for granted by them. However, freedom in Hong Kong is changing from a “daily necessity” to a “luxury”, and people are paying more and more to obtain it.
The difference between Hong Kong and China lies in both the system and the values of the people, including the feeling of freedom. Most Chinese people are attracted to material luxuries such as branded cosmetics, clothing and jewelry, but are indifferent to spiritual luxuries such as freedom of the press and freedom of speech, contrary to Hong Kong people. A Chinese student once praised the fresh air and freedom of the United States in his graduation speech in the United States, but was attacked by Chinese netizens as “singing the praises of China” and “selling out the country for glory”. The Chinese Communist Party has encountered little resistance to the denial of civil rights such as freedom of the press and freedom of expression in China, both because of the authority of the authoritarian system and the tradition of citizens not to talk about national issues. However, the more freedom becomes a luxury in Hong Kong, the more determined the citizens will be in their pursuit.
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