Former Deputy Prime Minister of Government John Lee was elected as the sole candidate for the Hong Kong Chief Executive Election on May 8. According to the EPA 2022 Reporters Without Borders (RSF) World Press Freedom Index, Hong Kong was ranked 148th out of 180 countries. When the first report was released in 2002, it was ranked 18th. That was the fifth year since Hong Kong was returned to China, and since then, it has dropped 130 places. In Hong Kong, freedom of the press is seen as an indicator of ‘one country, two systems (one country, two systems coexist)’. Hong Kong’s media ecosystem has become very vulnerable as the daily Bean Fruit Daily and the online media ‘Ipjang Sinmun’, which had voiced critical voices against the Chinese government last year, were shut down one after another. In July, it will be two years since the Hong Kong National Security Law came into effect. On May 8, former police officer John Lee (Li Jiaqiao), former deputy prime minister of government, was elected as Hong Kong’s chief executive. On May 15, he appeared on a radio show and said: “Freedom of the press is like an identity card in Hong Kong. It’s already in your pocket, so you don’t have to win.” If that ‘identity card’ is freedom of speech under one country, two systems, 7 million Hong Kongers have already lost their identity cards. After returning to China from the British colonies, the Hong Kong government has rarely appointed former police officers to administrative and judicial positions except ‘John Lee’. The fact that the Beijing government chose former Deputy Prime Minister John Lee, a former police officer, is breaking political ‘common sense’. In 2012, Lee was appointed deputy director of the security bureau through then chief executive Leung Chun-ying, and in 2017, he was promoted to the chief of the security bureau and became the deputy prime minister for government affairs, the second-in-command position. He was elected as the sole candidate for the office of Chief Executive this year. All of them were people who broke the limits of their police status. Analysts say that the background of the three ‘breaking rules’ contains the intention of the Beijing authorities to break the norms left by the British colony. Lee graduated from Wah Yan College. He then went on to get accepted to the University of Hong Kong, but dropped out of his studies ‘for family reasons’. In 1977, he entered the police academy at the age of 20, and his life changed. 1977 is an iconic year in Hong Kong’s police history. Until then, Hong Kong police were a symbol of corruption. He held the economic powers of all walks of life, including gambling. In 1973, when the Hong Kong government issued an anti-bribery ordinance and demanded the disclosure of property from British police officer Peter Godber, he fled to the UK. With this incident as an opportunity, the following year, the anti-corruption investigation agency ‘Yeomjeonggongseo (ICAC)’ was established. Since then, complaints have erupted as many corrupt police officers have been fired. In 1977, more than 100 police officers broke into the headquarters of the Yeomjeong Public Office and beat an employee. At that time, the British colonial government described the incident as a rather neutral term, ‘conflict between the police and the Yeomjeong Public Office’. The British government, which was unable to suppress the momentum of the police, started paying attention in 1977 after paying the ‘price’. From then on, the police were not allowed to participate in Hong Kong’s policy-making and had to remain politically neutral. High-ranking police officers have been strictly regulated after retirement. The power of criminal prosecution was entrusted to the head of the Criminal Bureau, a former lawyer. Hong Kong police are left with only law enforcement powers. Lee entered the police force in 1977 and was in charge of criminal investigations. He never made any official comments about social movements, such as the 2014 “umbrella revolution” or the 2019 anti-extradition law protests. However, Lee was the man behind the Police Policy Bureau who best used the colonial ‘evil laws’ to eliminate dissent. For example, in 2018, the Hong Kong police pushed for the dissolution of the Hongkong National Party, which advocates for Hong Kong’s independence. The basis for this was the ‘Association Ordinance’, which made it possible to disband social groups when there was a risk of harming national security, public safety, and public order. At that time, the ‘democratic’ lawmakers were astonished. This is because the ordinance was not even used to crack down on the Hong Kong gang, the Triad, as it was a prescriptive decree in the colonial era. The Hong Kong National Party was forcibly disbanded by the Hong Kong government in September 2018. As reporters’ coverage narrows, the Hong Kong government has avoided commenting on colonial heritage such as the ordinance. What is clear is that President-elect Lee does not hesitate to inherit this evil law. No one expected that after the implementation of the Hong Kong National Security Law in July 2020, the government would use the colonial era ‘Criminal Crime Ordinance (a type of criminal law)’ to accuse politicians and the media of sedition. Under the law, conspiring to publish a seditious publication carries a maximum sentence of two years in prison. In September 2020, Hong Kong police arrested Tam Tak-chi, vice president of People Power, a political activist group, and Joshua Wong, a pro-democracy activist, on charges of sedition. The British colonial government did not take advantage of the seditious crime. On December 29, 2021, the online media was closed one day before the 7th anniversary of its founding. Former and current executives and employees were arrested by the police on charges of publishing inflammatory publications. The two editors of the “Ippo Newspaper” are still in prison. In April last year, a Hong Kong court found RTHK broadcaster Tsai Yuling (center) guilty. ⓒEPA What will happen to Hong Kong’s independent media in an era when a former police chief executive comes to power? Lee, a former investigative officer, is well aware of the provisions of the Basic Law that make it difficult for reporters to report. One example of this was changing his privacy-related rules during his tenure with the Sheriff’s Office. Hong Kong public broadcaster RTHK’s current affairs program producer Tsai Yuling produced a documentary that traced the background of the “white terror” inflicted on Hong Kong protesters during the protests against the extradition law in July 2020. Producer Tsai Yuling paid attention to the license plate of the car with clubs and wooden sticks in the video filmed by citizens at the time. As a result of the car check, it was a vehicle of a pro-Chinese person. However, PD Tsai Yuling was arrested in November 2020 on charges of not revealing his identity as a journalist. A Hong Kong court found guilty of providing false information and accessing public data. It is no longer difficult for journalists to verify the identity of the owner of the vehicle through the license plate. As a journalist, it became difficult to apply for a building plan to the Architecture Department. The narrower the scope of the reporter’s coverage, the less the media will lose depth and the more meaningless the report will be. Above all else, the news and the public will be separated. Lee, along with former police chief Tang Pingkeng (currently secretary of the National Security Agency), who was in charge of suppressing the protests, intervened in the media coverage process ‘secretly’. Most Hong Kong citizens are unaware that some foreign correspondents have been subject to surveillance since the implementation of the National Security Law. In addition, Hong Kong police searched a printing house that published a book about the 2019 anti-extradition law movement. It is said that the police at the printing house demanded, “Remove this photo” and “Remove that photo as well.” These were photos of protests against the extradition bill in 2019. Rumors circulated in the publishing world at the time that the photos became the ‘red line’ that touched the heart of Beijing. in print on June 18 last year. ⓒHK feature In June 2021, a month before the closure of the Bean Fruit Daily, there were rumors in the media industry that the Chinese Communist Party would soon get rid of the Bean Fruit Daily. More than 20 reporters resigned based on the rumor alone. As a result, it was true. The government made good use of the rumors. I still see rumors sweeping through the media industry every six months that the “government will stop the independent press in a short period of time”. From someone anonymous: “You have been targeted. You may receive a Telegram message to the effect of “stop your work without harming other reporters.” These experiences were not limited to individual cases. The Hong Kong government and courts have frequently interfered with the establishment of media outlets in other ways by the Bean Fruit Daily. As a result, he was hesitant to report on the Internet. It is estimated that there are at least 200 reporters from media outlets that have been discontinued, such as , and . More than half of them quit their jobs as journalists, went to study abroad, or found a job in another field. I believe that ‘new Hong Kong’ has now passed over to the Security Bureau after the National Security Law was enacted in Hong Kong. On September 26, 2021, the Hong Kong Citizens’ Coalition in Support of the Patriotic Movement (Jiryeonhoe), an organization commemorating the victims of the recent Tiananmen incident, was officially disbanded. At that time, Jiryonhoe officials were charged with subversion of the state and sedition. Not long ago, it became known that the signature of the indictment was signed by Lee-elect, then head of the Security Agency. This shows that Lee already has judicial and law enforcement powers as Chief Executive Officer. President-elect John Lee and Secretary of the Security Bureau, Tang Pingkeng, have a different style from that of the CCP. If there is a clear ‘red line’ in mainland China, the Hong Kong government does not tell us where the red line is. This means that if Hong Kongers want to live ‘as usual’, they should test how far this single red line is drawn. Everyday is like the last day In mainland China, the line is clear. A citizen who publicly criticized the June 4, 1989 incident was sentenced to at least 10 years in prison. This is something I learned while interviewing a human rights activist in China last year. Beijing authorities told citizens: “It is illegal to speak about the Tiananmen incident.” In the days of President Jiang Zemin, the red line was looser. Media such as the Namdo Ilbo also exposed the shadowy side of the Chinese people. However, since Xi Jinping came to power, Chinese public security has stepped in to clarify the lines of media coverage. On the other hand, in Hong Kong, it is impossible to know at all whether the content of the report is against the ‘good’. Is it a crime to criticize the Chief Executive? It was only then that journalists found out that it was the ‘Red Line’ when the Bean Fruit Daily was charged with subverting the state and The Ippo Newspaper was accused of colluding with a seditious publication. However, foreign correspondents in Hong Kong continue to report. Media outlets such as the Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP) still criticize the government. Currently, no one knows where the red line has moved. Next time, I or someone else can become a reporter who crosses the line. On July 1, the elected John Lee was officially appointed Chief Executive. I am not optimistic about the current situation in Hong Kong independent media. This is because Lee is more likely to obey the central government. As Hong Kong’s Chineseization accelerates, it is predicted that Hong Kong will not only be cut off politically and diplomatically from the international community, but also become a Chinese paramilitary city where military tensions prevail. In this situation, independent media has no living space. Beijing could decide to partially open Hong Kong to the international community. Even so, after Lee took office, administrative measures will be taken, such as chasing down journalists, banning crowdfunding, or raiding editorial offices. Interference like this makes us die slowly. Among them, the most direct method is to mobilize the National Security Act to demand that the media companies cease operations. In Hong Kong’s independent press, every day is like the last day. There is today, but there is no tomorrow, and there is no way to predict when the news will be available.
ssn-general
Appointment of a minister who breaks common sense Do you break the independent press?
