(CPJ/IFEX) – CPJ is deeply concerned over reports that police in Beijing briefly detained 11 Hong Kong-based journalists on Monday 14 June 1999, as they were covering a visit by delegates from the territory’s Federation of Students. The journalists had accompanied the students to Beijing, where the delegation had intended to present a petition before […]
(CPJ/IFEX) – CPJ is deeply concerned over reports that police in Beijing
briefly detained 11 Hong Kong-based journalists on Monday 14 June 1999, as
they were covering a visit by delegates from the territory’s Federation of
Students. The journalists had accompanied the students to Beijing, where the
delegation had intended to present a petition before the National People’s
Congress challenging China’s authority to reinterpret Hong Kong’s
constitution.
**Updates IFEX alert of 14 June 1999**
Officers from Beijing’s Public Security Bureau (PSB) intercepted the
journalists when they arrived with the students at Beijing’s West Railway
Station at around 6:45 a.m. on 14 June. According to several Hong Kong
newspapers, the journalists were detained for more than an hour, their
camera film and videotapes were seized, and they were warned not to report
in the Tiananmen Square area without a special permit. The “South China
Morning Post” reported yesterday that nine of the journalists were released
only after writing letters indicating that they are aware of the rules
governing reporting on the mainland, and acknowledging that reporting near
Tiananmen Square without permission is illegal. Two of the others were,
according to the “Post”, detained separately, and warned that they would be
punished if they wrote about the group’s detention.
All 11 journalists worked for Hong Kong-based media: two from TVB television
station, two from Cable TV station, a reporter and a photographer from the
English-language daily “South China Morning Post”, a reporter from the
Chinese-language newspaper “Oriental Daily”, a reporter from the
Chinese-language newspaper “Ming Pao”, and one photographer each from the
Chinese-language newspapers “Apple Daily”, “Sing Tao Daily”, and “The Sun”.
Though the student delegation was allowed to drop off its petition at the
Great Hall of the People on Tuesday 15 June, one of the student leaders,
Leung Pak-nang, told Agence France-Presse that police said that their
“petition was legal, but the media coverage of it was illegal.” PSB
officers, therefore, prevented the students from holding a press conference
at their Beijing hotel.
Recommended Action
Send appeals to the president:
performing their professional duties
as
they are covering a story that is of vital interest to the citizens of Hong
Kong, and attempts to censor such news clearly violate his administration’s
pledges to respect the territory’s autonomy
International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights, to which China is now a signatory, by abrogating
the “freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas of all
kinds, regardless of frontiers”
of journalists in the future, and to reassure the Hong Kong media that his
administration will not tolerate such incursions on their freedom
Appeals To
Jiang Zemin
President, State Council
Beijing 100032
People’s Republic of China
Fax: +86 10 6512 5810
Please copy appeals to the source if possible.
