An outspoken radio talkshow host told Hong Kong legislators yesterday that he quit his show because Chinese officials told him he would be in danger if he did not stop airing anti-Beijing comments.
Allen Lee (
"A lot of people, including mainland officials, pressured me to keep quiet," Lee told a specially convened legislative panel meeting. "I refused to soften my views ... so I quit."
Lee resigned from his Teacup in a Storm radio show soon after two other high-profile talkshow hosts stepped down saying they had received threats of violence because of their anti-Beijing views.
The resignations sparked fears in the largely-autonomous former British colony, which was handed over to China in 1997, that Beijing had launched a crackdown on subversive media figures.
Lee said a "retired Chinese official" and other people including a friend had tried to persuade him to tone down his comments.
"This mainland friend wanted to see me but I refused ... because he wanted to speak to me about the matters about my show," Lee said. "I felt that there was no need to talk about it because ... there was nothing more to talk about."
Lee, the former leader of the business-backed Liberal Party and a leading Cabinet member during British rule, is the only one of the three hosts to speak to legislators. The other two, Albert Cheng (
Lee said China's motive behind the intimidation was September's legislative elections, which democrats critical of China are tipped to win.
"No one in this room would know how nervous they [China] are about this year's election," Lee said. "This nervousness is unprecedented."
A pro-Beijing legislator, however, poured scorn on Lee's comments, saying there was no proof China was behind the threats.
"We shouldn't make any conclusions until the police have finished their investigation," said Wong Yung-kan (
He also scoffed at suggestions freedom of speech had been harmed.
"No one has told any editors not to publish any stories, even on Teacup in a Storm they still criticize the government," Wong said.
Pro-democracy legislator Margaret Ng (
"Freedom of speech means freedom from fear," she told reporters after the hearing. "If you have to be defiant and think that you must risk your life to speak out on perfectly normal political views, it is frightening."
Meanwhile, 400 academics yesterday put their names in a full-page advertisement in the mass-circulation Apple Daily newspaper, expressing "shock and concern" over the resignations.
"Today there is growing alarm at the threat to the freedom of speech and we need to be vigilant against the signs of its erosion," it read.
"We firmly believe that the freedom to speak one's mind publicly should be treasured and defended," it said.
Fears of a crackdown on free speech have added to growing mistrust of mainland authorities following Beijing's hardline ruling earlier this month against a swift transition to full democracy in Hong Kong.
The intervention followed months of conflict between Beijing officials and pro-democracy figures, who claimed that Hong Kong's mini-Constitution provided for full elections of the territory's leader by 2007.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema
RSS