This morning, I woke up to a piece of news that a producer (reporter) at RTHK got arrested related to background checks she conducted on some people in related to a massive mob attack at the Yuen Long MTR (subway) station last July in Hong Kong.
The attack back on that day resulted a revision of travel advisory from the Global Affairs in Canada towards Hong Kong, which was something, my group, THKAG had done a request on.
It has been over 15 months, and the Hong Kong Police Force had refused to tell Hong Kong citizens what happened on the day of July 21, 2019 mob attacks, the “Independent” police Complaints Council (which is not independent from the police force, released a review on the recent behaviour of the police in May, only did a very brief description on the incident without any fundings on investigation, left citizens angrier and more fear had grown on worsen in Hong Kong moving towards a police state.
RTHK 香港電台 鏗鏘集 Hong Kong Connection released a documentary on the incident on Oct 4, 2019, traced the whole evening and reconstruct the event.
As a freelance media worker, I worked in the media in Hong Kong for a decade back in the 90s, I felt heartbroken and shocked to see what was coming down over the last 6 months, especially after the implementation of the National Security Law in July.
Just as I started to write this article, the reporter got released and she was on the live news. She seemed to be calm and she is being charged for making false declaration while conducting licence plate searches involving vehicles seen picking up men suspected of being involved.
Press freedom in Hong Kong had been in the spotlight after the erosion of other forms of freedom - freedom of demonstration, freedom of expression etc. Over the last few months, police had conducted large operation in search of an office building of a major newspaper. Forigen reporters were repeatedly reported not getting visa extensions.
With that said, how safe is Hong Kong in the future with information suppressed? When reporters are being blocked by police to demonstration areas, what happened can only be told by the officials, how much we can trust that? All these seems to be related to the civil society, but how do we know when will that extend to information on other aspects? How can Hong Kong function as a world financial hub with that trend?
Hong Kong is no longer the Hong Kong we grew up with and the government is no longer serving its citizens. Journalists who are trying to uncover the truth are now afraid of being arrested, even if they can hang on and continue what they are doing now, I am sure they will think twice on what they are going to work on and how are the stories going to be presented. We are all humans. I am not too sure how long they can hold onto this principle. I sincerely hope the media in Hong Kong will hold on and try their best to tell the world the truth.
God bless Hong Kong.
Background info:
The original episode:
721 Yuen Long Nightmare, Oct 4, 2019 which won awards in US, as well as the 2020 Human Rights Press Award.
https://youtu.be/zpkFRsSo30o
On the same story, they released another episode recently:
7.21 Who Owns the Truth, Oct 30, 2020
https://www.rthk.hk/.../programme/hkce/episode/706428...
NY Festival TV & Film Awards
https://tvfilm.newyorkfestivals.com/.../ae1a0cfa-80bf...
US International Film & Video Festival Award
http://www.filmfestawards.com/awards/index.asp?PROCESS=Y=2007=CERTIFICATE=Journey+of+the+Jean=CORPORATE%3A+Corporate+Communications+-++Employee+Oriented==OR
2020 Human Rights Press Award
https://www.fcchk.org/winners-of-2020-human-rights-press.../
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