CPJ concerned about implications of director’s transfer

(CPJ/IFEX) -CPJ is concerned about the implications of this week’s abrupt transfer of Cheung Man-yee from her post as director of Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK). Cheung has been a staunch defender of press freedom during her thirteen-year tenure as director of RTHK, a publicly funded broadcast agency with a long tradition of editorial autonomy. […]

(CPJ/IFEX) -CPJ is concerned about the implications of this week’s abrupt
transfer of Cheung Man-yee from her post as director of Radio Television
Hong Kong (RTHK). Cheung has been a staunch defender of press freedom during
her thirteen-year tenure as director of RTHK, a publicly funded broadcast
agency with a long tradition of editorial autonomy.

**Updates IFEX alert of 22 October 1999**

With its strong reputation for quality broadcasting, RTHK is considered a
bellwether for press freedom in post-handover Hong Kong. Journalists in Hong
Kong are worried that persistent pressure from Beijing to rein in RTHK may
have contributed to Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa’s administration’s
decision to post Cheung overseas.

Though Cheung publicly welcomed her new assignment as Hong Kong’s principal
economic and trade representative in Tokyo, local journalists have expressed
their profound dismay over the news, fearing that Cheung’s departure from
the agency signals the erosion of RTHK’s independence.

RTHK has repeatedly come under attack by officials in Beijing, most recently
in August 1999 when Tsang Hin-chi, a member of the National People’s
Congress Standing Committee, criticized the broadcaster for a program in
which Taiwan’s de facto envoy to Hong Kong defended President Lee Teng-hui’s
advocacy of “state-to-state” relations between the island and the mainland.
Tsang said that such views should not have been carried by RTHK, claiming
that “Stability is necessary for Hong Kong. As a government-funded station,
it ought to have self-control. [Otherwise] discussion on drafting of Article
23 has to start sooner.”

Article 23 of Hong Kong’s constitution, known as the Basic Law, says that
the “Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall enact laws on its own to
prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition [or] subversion against the
Central People’s Government.”

In March 1998, Xu Siwin, a Hong Kong delegate to the Chinese People’s
Political Consultative Congress, complained that RTHK was too free to
criticize the government and that the broadcast agency was “a remnant of
British rule.” Xu stated publicly that in response to his frequent requests
for Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa to “do something” about RTHK, he replied
“Slowly, slowly.”

Recommended Action

Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa

Central Government Offices

5th floor, Main Wing

Lower Albert Rd.

Hong Kong

Fax: +852 2509 0571