A Hong Kong journalists’ group has demanded that the semiautonomous government lobby Beijing for better protection after local reporters and cameramen allegedly faced rough treatment, bogus drug accusations and denial of press credentials in the mainland in the past year.
While mainland China maintains tight media controls, the former British colony enjoys freedom of press as part of its special political status.
The Hong Kong Journalists Association’s annual report issued on Sunday urged the Hong Kong government to “make it clear to Chinese leaders that harassment and detention of journalists is totally unacceptable.”
The association said the level of interference Hong Kong reporters faced while working on the mainland in the past year was the worst in 10 years.
“The frequency of reporters being harassed increased, as did the severity of this harassment,” said the report, which covered events between July 1 last year and June 30 this year.
An operator at the Chinese government’s liaison office in Hong Kong said no one was immediately available for comment. The Hong Kong government didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.
The association’s report accused Chinese police of stopping Hong Kong Now TV reporter Wong Ka-yu (黃嘉瑜) and her cameraman in August last year as they made their way to the trial of a human rights activist in the southern city of Chengdu. It said police accused them of possessing drugs, but a six-hour search of Wong’s hotel room — which prevented the two journalists from covering the trial — yielded nothing.
In September, officers allegedly punched, kicked and handcuffed a reporter and cameraman for Hong Kong’s TVB, as well as a Now TV journalist covering ethnic riots in the western city of Urumqi, the report said.
Earlier this year, organizers of the Shanghai World Expo ignored applications for press accreditation from Hong Kong’s Apple Daily newspaper, a publication Beijing views with skepticism because of its fiercely pro-democracy stance, it said.
The Hong Kong Journalists Association also urged the Hong Kong government to make radio station RTHK an independent public broadcaster — instead of keeping it as a government department — and to review broadcasting legislation in light of the failure of democracy activists to obtain a radio station license.
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