Tag: Freedom of Expression

Amnesty International to Close Its Hong Kong Offices

In a damning inditement of the ‘new’ Hong Kong under the 2020 National Security Law Amnesty International announced today that it will close both its Hong Kong Offices.

The local ‘section’ office will cease operations on 31 October while the regional office – which is part of Amnesty’s global International Secretariat – is due to close by the end of 2021. Regional operations will be moved to the organization’s other offices in the Asia-Pacific.

“This decision, made with a heavy heart, has been driven by Hong Kong’s national security law, which has made it effectively impossible for human rights organizations in Hong Kong to work freely and without fear of serious reprisals from the government,” said Anjhula Mya Singh Bais, chair of Amnesty’s International Board.

“Hong Kong has long been an ideal regional base for international civil society organizations, but the recent targeting of local human rights and trade union groups signals an intensification of the authorities’ campaign to rid the city of all dissenting voices. It is increasingly difficult for us to keep operating in such an unstable environment.”

The two are Amnesty offices are a local membership section focused on human rights education in the city; and a regional office that carries out research, advocacy and campaigning work on East and Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

“We are deeply indebted to Amnesty members and staff who over the last 40 years have worked tirelessly to protect human rights in and from Hong Kong. From successfully pushing for the full abolition of the death penalty in Hong Kong in 1993, to exposing evidence of excessive use of force by police during the 2019 mass protests, Amnesty in Hong Kong has shone a light on human rights violations in the darkest of days,” said Agnes Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International.

“In the wider region, our research and campaigning has tackled subjects including freedom of expression in North Korea, conscientious objection to military service in South Korea, the right to housing in Mongolia, Japan’s wartime atrocities against “comfort women”, and the crackdown on human rights lawyers in China.

“Moreover, Amnesty International Hong Kong’s education programmes – from classroom talks to a documentary film festival – have enhanced awareness of human rights not only in the city’s schools but among the general public as well. No one and no power can demolish that legacy.”

Amnesty documented the rapid deterioration of human rights in Hong Kong one year after the enactment of the national security law in a June 2021 briefing.

“The environment of repression and perpetual uncertainty created by the national security law makes it impossible to know what activities might lead to criminal sanctions. The law has repeatedly been used to target people who have upset the authorities for any number of reasons – from singing political songs to discussing human rights issues in the classroom,” said Anjhula Mya Singh Bais.

“The pattern of raids, arrests and prosecutions against perceived opponents has highlighted how the vagueness of the law can be manipulated to build a case against whomsoever the authorities choose.”

A government crackdown targeting activists, opposition politicians and independent media has recently expanded to include civil society organizations. At least 35 groups have disbanded since the law was enacted, including some of the city’s largest unions and activist groups.

“There are difficult days ahead for human rights in Hong Kong, but Amnesty International will continue to stand with the people of Hong Kong.  We will fight for their rights to be respected and we will be vigilant in our scrutiny of those who abuse them,” said Agnes Callamard.

“While leaving the city that we have called home for decades is devastating, we do so proud of our achievements over that time, and confident that the strength of Amnesty’s 10 million-plus supporters worldwide will enable us to continue our work together to end human rights abuses everywhere.”

RTHK Director Roy Tang opposes Freedom of Expression

RTHK - post852

All is not well at RTHK as Director Roy Tang demands the removal of ‘promoting freedom of expression and a democratic society’ from Producers Guidelines.

Here’s the original story in Chinese: 港台《製作人員守則》修訂 鄧忍光要求刪去「促進言論自由、民主社會」段落. With a quick translation provided by reddit user wheeloffire:

Roy Tang ‘harmonises’ RTHK Guidelines, demands the deletion of ‘promoting freedom of expression and a democratic society’ RTHK, which has had some ‘harmonious misgivings’ several times in recent years, now has a new crisis. Post 852 has obtained an internal RTHK document showing that RTHK staff have recommended that administration amend the Producers’ Guidelines. However they were met with Broadcasting Director Roy Tang’s demand that the words ‘promoting freedom of expression, open and democratic society’ be removed from the revision. When Tang’s demand was met with opposition, he further rudely asserted his stance one by one to the administration at a meeting.

According to the document, the ‘harmonised version’ of the revision will be implemented unless additional action is taken. The RTHK Union criticised the decision-making process as crude and unreasonable and appealed to RTHK staff to help to turn the tide [in favour of the original revision].

Besides the Charter of RTHK, RTHK has ‘Producers’ Guidelines‘ (Guidelines) which serve as basis for the editorial staff’s operations. The Forward of the Guidelines states that RTHK codified their tried and tested programme editorial practices into the Guidelines to enhance the transparency and accountability of RTHK’s operation. The Guidelines reflected not only RTHK’s working principles but also social norms and standards.

As the Guidelines had been neither reviewed or revised since 2003 and thus may have become outdated in part, RTHK formed a representative working group last year with delegates from more than 20 different departments. It is Post 852‘s understanding is that it was chaired by Assistant Director of Broadcasting Tai Keen-man. The working group met more than 10 times since May 2013 to discuss and propose specific recommendations on revising the Guidelines.

Originally, this was to be a very simple affair, yet now the situation appears to have changed. Post 852 obtained a non-public document that the RTHK Programme Staff Union (Union) issued to RTHK staff and found that the Director of Broadcasting had brutally demanded deleting a section of the proposed revised text.

It’s said that working group had reached a consensus last year and proposed amendments to paragraphs in the first chapter of the Guidelines which referred to public broadcasting. The Union document provides the revised English language (item 1), translated by the newspaper as follows [here’s the original instead]:

‘As a public service broadcaster, RTHK pledges to uphold the core values of editorial independence and impartiality. We take public interest as the basis of our work. We share the values and missions of public broadcasters around the world, namely universality, diversity, independence and distinctiveness of programming. We promote freedom of expression, open and democratic society, civic participation and a caring community. We also pledge to serve the people, produce quality programmes, nurture talent, monitor any infringement of public interest, and retain the trust that the community has placed in us.’

No related definitions under UNESCO

However RTHK administration subsequently told the working group that they had reservations about the above proposed revision. They believed that the sentence ‘We promote freedom of expression, open and democratic society, civic participation and a caring community’ (the ‘Freedom of Expression sentence’) was not defined under United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for public broadcasters, and so they returned the revision back to the working group for further discussion.

The working group then held three meetings during which the group again consulted discourse on public broadcasting from UNESCO, Asia Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development (AIB), and European Broadcasting Union (EBU). They found support for the core values of freedom of expression and open and democratic societies running throughout the organisational documents of major broadcasters and that it was in line with the international community’s understanding of public broadcasting. As a result, in November 2013 the working group unanimously carried the motion to retain the original proposed revision.

Post 852 looked at UNESCO’s website and found that, although UNESCO does not directly state that public broadcasters must promote democracy, it stresses that the public broadcasting ‘is vital to the functioning of democratic societies’ and ‘can serve as a cornerstone of democracy’ (note 2). In other words, according to the spirit of UNESCO, public broadcasting was originally also a tool to promote the development of democracy and it can be seen that the working group’s proposals were not unreasonable.

Relevant lines from UNESCO:
This brochure presents in a simple and direct style an entirely up-to-date summary of the basic concepts relating to public broadcasting, which is vital to the functioning of democratic societies.
When guaranteed with pluralism, programming diversity, editorial independence, appropriate funding, accountability and transparency, public service broadcasting can serve as a cornerstone of democracy.

link to reddit article: http://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/24iset/rthk_broadcasting_director_demands_the_deletion/