The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) yesterday released its 2014 Annual Report on Press Freedom in China and Hong Kong. In its “Hong Kong and Macau” section, the report said that the media in Macau “received direct threats from the local government”. It mentioned an alleged self-censorship incident that took place on June 4 last year when TDM was said to have disciplined two anchors for their choice of clothing, together with controversy over the dismissal of scholars by local universities.
The report focused its attention on the situation in mainland China and Hong Kong while commenting that, “Macau’s press freedom situation was not much better than Hong Kong’s”.
“Press freedom in Macau did not improve. Journalists were arrested on spurious grounds and two outspoken scholars were ‘kicked out’ of their universities”, the report said.
It then detailed several controversial events that took place last year regarding media freedom, including an incident surrounding two anchors from TDM who were alleged to have been “disciplined for making a subtle on-air protest in commemoration of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing”. It also mentioned the departure of former TDM executive board president Leong Kam Chun, as well as several anonymous complaints to the Macau Journalists Association from TDM journalists who claimed that censorship in the broadcaster’s news department was escalating.
Moreover, the IFJ suspected that the Macau police abandoned its political neutrality after it detained two journalists from the online pro-democratic media Macau Concealers when it was alleged to have illegally published the logo of the Judiciary Police (PJ). The logo was published during the unofficial civil referendum that was taking place and was to show that one of the voters in the referendum was a PJ officer.
Furthermore, the report has described the Macau Health Bureau as “[playing] PR tricks” when the bureau sent one of its public relations staff to a press conference where a patient was going to detail a case of alleged medical negligence.
It also talked about the incidents where Hong Kong journalists, reporters and participants in the Occupy Movement were denied entry into Macau during the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping. “The local government continued to use the ‘law’ to bar pro-democracy journalists, scholars, politicians and activists from entering the territory”, it said.
However, IFJ noted that civil organizations in Hong Kong and Macau were taking “significant actions in order to awaken citizens to their political rights”.
Press freedom in Hong Kong ‘under unprecedented pressure’
The IFJ reported described 2014 as “a bumpy year for Hong Kong” and claimed that at least 39 reporters were “harassed detained, assaulted or maliciously accused by Hong Kong police or anti-Occupy Movement demonstrators”. It also cited an article that said there are “several pairs of invisible black hands [that were] manipulating the media’s soul”.
The report mentioned incidents where alleged censorship occurred. For example, the Hong Kong broadcaster TVB was said to have self-censored its news program by removing a script from a news bulletin that showed seven alleged police officers beating up one Occupy Movement protestor. The head of the news department later claimed that the script was “subjective” because it mentioned punching and kicking.
Other incidents where alleged violations of press freedom occurred also included newspaper editors being assaulted and replaced, as well as a radio host having her contract terminated.
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