The Hong Kong government has further tightened press freedom by changing the so-called Police General Orders to take away the “licensing rights” of all journalists through the police department. In other words, from now on, only the Hong Kong government can define who is a journalist and who is not. This move by the Hong Kong government immediately drew protests from some of the smaller online media, including over 30 media outlets, including the Pearly Evening News, the Club, Hee Haw, PSHK, Resistance Live Media, Gleaner Media, National Reporter, and Mi Newspaper, which criticized the police for violating the Basic Law, being backward and ignorant, and for opposing all screening of media and journalists.
During last year’s anti-amendment street protests, many police brutalities were exposed by the ubiquitous “underdog media,” and the police often used the press as a target for pepper spray when enforcing the law. These small-scale online media also include university media from post-secondary institutions.
The police sent a letter to four media organizations on the 22nd, stating that the Police General Orders would be amended so that holders of membership cards of the Hong Kong Journalists Association and the Hong Kong Press Photographers Association would no longer be considered as accredited “media representatives,” while news organizations would have to register with the Information Services Department to be accredited.
HKJA Chairman Yang Jianxing regretted the police’s arrangement to amend the law, describing it as a serious damage to the mutual trust and cooperation between the police and the HKJA, and considered it “hypocritical” for the police to think that the amendment would help the media to cooperate with the work of the media, and that it was aimed at online media and school media. The reporters are school media and citizen journalists, they are not on the list. The Journalists Association press card was “overhead” after the amendment, Yang Jianxing said that he had not received any complaints from the police about people “pretending to be journalists” with fake cards, and there were no complaints about the misuse of the Journalists Association press card, and he thought that the police had overhead the membership cards of two journalists associations as proof of identity. “Close to tight official recognition of the journalist system,”
The police have abruptly amended the rules,” Yang told Apple Daily, “and the Chief Superintendent of the Police Public Relations Branch, Ambrose Kwok, called me two days ago and didn’t even mention it,” stressing that the Journalism Society is willing to discuss interview arrangements with the police, “and we’re very willing to talk, but now we’ve run out of things to talk about. “In addition to being unable to cover the event, they also have the opportunity to receive tickets for the restricted gathering. It seems like a “direct impact” on online and school media, Yang is worried that in the future, online and school media reporters may lose the treatment of journalists, and not only fail to cover the interview, but also have the chance to receive tickets or be accused of breaking the law. The restrictions on Internet and school media coverage also have an impact on the “recognized” mainstream media, Yang pointed out that in the past, the Internet and school media can capture a lot of exclusive footage, taking the 12-year-old girl being subdued by a police officer flying at her, for example, “no one else captured the footage, so the mainstream media will use it. “The police and journalists have reached a low level of mutual trust.
Sudden changes to the police general rules, Yang believes that the prelude to the regulation of the media, describing the mutual trust between the police and journalists has reached a low point, “can not rule out any action they still …… issued (official) press card can not be completely ruled out”. The Journalists Association is studying the next step.
Hong Kong Photojournalists Association Chairman Stephen Chen said, after the amendment, freelance journalists are most affected, the journalists are mostly free to “sell photos” to different media, not employed by the same company for a long time, so usually to the supporting documents of the Association to prove the identity of journalists. Chen continued to point out that the police did not consult before the amendment, but the Chief Superintendent of the Police Public Relations Branch, Mr. Kwok Ka-chuen, had asked his opinion on the online media, and Chen also expressed that there was no problem for the online media to cover the story together.
Chen said that due to the polarization of political views in Hong Kong nowadays, photojournalists are often targeted by dissidents at the frontline, so photojournalists mostly use the press card of the HKJA for identification purposes, “wearing the HKJA will not be attacked”. In addition, the HKAPA has also handed over a sample of the press card to the Police Public Relations Branch, “just to facilitate our work, if we want to see the press card of the organization we belong to, they have to see if the press card of hundreds of media is real or fake. In the meantime, Chen said that he would inquire with the Information Services Department and would meet with the Commissioner of Police, Mr. Anthony Tang, to reflect the industry’s dissatisfaction with the arrangement.
PSHK Media Ltd, MeePao, Community Frontline Media and other 35 online media issued a joint statement, said that the Internet media has become very popular, the Journalists Association and other organizations have been with the Hong Kong Government has been a legitimate and effective communication channel, the exclusion of online media is tantamount to “Hong Kong back to the backward decades before the Internet was not available, the removal of effective communication channels, will only create confusion and controversy”, criticized the Hong Kong Police Force this time is backward and foolish, and made it clear that they oppose all screening of the media, oppose all screening of journalists.
The statement also pointed out that journalists interview is the legitimate practice of the system and laws of Hong Kong and freedom of the press, any form of screening, is to undermine the freedom of the press and the system of Hong Kong; police to amend the Police General Orders is clearly contrary to the original intent of One Country, Two Systems, the Basic Law and the National Security Law, but also undermines the success of Hong Kong as a cosmopolitan city cornerstone, bringing shame to Hong Kong in the international community, but also the expectations of the public and the country.
In addition, eight press unions also issued a statement expressing their dissatisfaction with the police’s amendments, including the Hong Kong Journalists Association, the Hong Kong Press Photographers Association, the Independent Reviewers Association, the Tertiary Journalism Education Staff Association, the Ming Pao Staff Association, the Next Media Workers Union, the Radio Television Hong Kong Producers’ Union, and the Public Press Union. The statement criticized the police for unilaterally making this major amendment without any consultation at all, and for “destroying the relationship that has been built up over the years”. The unions demanded that the police rescind the amendment or else they would respond with all possible and necessary measures.
The statement questioned the police’s amendment, which is tantamount to an official definition of a journalist and is tantamount to an official licensing system, undermining the freedom of press and freedom of the press in Hong Kong. The statement emphasized that the police’s claim that people are impersonating journalists to obstruct law enforcement and assault police officers is unsubstantiated, and that the police’s amendment is not only unreasonable, but also undermines the rights of Hong Kong people themselves.
The News Executives’ Association also expressed strong concern about the incident, and believed that the police should explain in detail the registration system before the implementation of the new arrangements to allay the concerns of the industry; stressed that the measures must ensure that journalists will not be unreasonably and unnecessarily restricted to ensure that the freedom of the press is not compromised and undermined.
In response to media inquiries, the police pointed out that Commissioner Tang Bing-keung met with representatives of four media associations (the Hong Kong News Executives’ Association, the Hong Kong Federation of Journalists, the Hong Kong Journalists Association and the Hong Kong Press Photographers Association) on May 21 this year to “exchange views on the problems encountered by journalists during interviews at police law enforcement scenes.
Deng agreed at the meeting that everyone has the right to interview or “take pictures on the street” and that there are no “so-called fake journalists”.
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