Hong Kong journalist exposed police failures
An award-winning Hong Kong journalist was found guilty of a crime Thursday for by using a public database to expose police failings, the 1st time a member of the news headlines media has faced prosecution in the Chinese territory for an act of reporting.The verdict against 37-year-old Choy Yuk-ling, often known as Bao Choy, highlights the deterioration of media freedoms in Hong Kong, supposedly protected beneath the law, as China remodels metropolis after imposing a draconian national security law.
“This prosecution is part of an ongoing strategy by the government of using the legal system to crack down on dissent, which now includes anyone - including investigative journalists - who attempts to challenge the government’s official narrative,” said Antony Dapiran, a Hong Kong-based attorney and writer, Washington Post reports.
Choy, a former staff producer and freelancer for public broadcaster Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK), was arrested in November and accused of breaching the law for accessing a public database of car registrations. She was wanting to obtain vehicle license plate information - a typical procedure that Hong Kong journalists practice when fact- checking or reporting investigative stories. She pleaded not liable.
The license plate information was found in a documentary for RTHK, investigating the failure of police to prevent a pro-Beijing mob from attacking anti-government protesters and commuters at a subway station in July 2019. The incident was one of the most consequential of the 2019 protests in Hong Kong and undermined confidence in the police, who arrived only following the mob had left and dozens were injured.
Your day before her verdict, Choy’s documentary episode won the Kam Yiu-yu Press Freedom Award, among the best journalistic honors in Hong Kong. The award jury said the work raised “important leads that the persons in power refused to react to,” adding that it had been a “detailed and professional utilization of public records.”
The episode was titled “7.21: Who Owns the reality.” In delivering her verdict, the court judge said that the public does not have “absolute rights” to access documents under Hong Kong law. and that Choy should have been truthful while trying to gain access to the database. Choy’s known reasons for accessing the database, the judge added, do not matter.
Choy faced up to half a year in prison, however the judge, taking into consideration the reporter’s awards and the merits of her work, decided to an excellent of $774. Choy, upon hearing the decision, became popular her black mask and wiped away tears.Police have since worked to rewrite the narrative of this night, presenting it as a clash between “evenly matched rivals.”
