Police suspended their regular afternoon press briefing today over six reporters who had donned helmets bearing slogans calling for an end to police violence.
The reporters from RTHK, Ming Pao, Stand News, Initium, AM730, and InMedia were each wearing protective helmets with a Chinese character stuck to them. Put together, the characters read, “Investigate police brutality, stop police’s lies.”
As soon as officers sat down for the briefing on the weekend’s protests and arrests, Senior Superintendent Ko Chun-pong from the Police Public Relations Bureau asked the reporters to remove their helmets.
When the reporters refused to comply, the officers left the room, and PPRB personnel tried to get the six reporters to leave.
Ko repeatedly told the reporters, “this is a police press conference, not a place to protest,” accusing the reporters of disrupting the briefing, prompting others in the room to argue “they’re being very peaceful,” and saying the six were not being disruptive.
The reporters continued to sit in silence, and after about 20 minutes, Ko read out a statement saying the briefing was an important channel for the police to communicate with the public and therefore mutual respect and order is required. He then canceled the briefing, and turned off the lights.
Speaking to reporters outside Police Headquarters shortly afterwards, Ronson Chan Long-sing — Stand News’ deputy assignment editor — said they were not protesting, but making a statement in response to the arrest of two journalists who were covering a protest inside Cityplaza in Tai Koo Shing, where a bloody attack by a critic of the protest movement left several injured.
Chan expressed regret over the cancelling of presser, but stressed that police have repeatedly targeted journalists at protests.
“When they have arrested one journalist, they could arrest another one,” he said. “There is no guarantee of public’s right to know.”
Indeed, instances of deliberate police violence towards protesters appear to be becoming more common, despite the repeated insistence by the force that reporters are merely in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Chan, meanwhile, also noted that he had protested in the place of another reporter who had received a call from a senior member of their newsroom telling them not to take part, and appealed to senior editors to understand the dangers faced by frontline reporters.
One of the reporters arrested over the weekend was one of Chan’s colleagues, Joey Kwok, a freelance photographer who was arrested and handcuffed on suspicion of obstructing police as he was taking photos at the mall. Stand News have confirmed in the last hour that Kwok was released unconditionally by police, and that the outlet would be seeking legal advice on the matter.
The second person arrested was Nelson Tang, a journalism student and member of Hong Kong Baptist University Students’ Union Editorial Board. Tang was filmed after his arrest at Cityplaza telling people that one of the officers had just whispered to him that they would rape him inside the San Uk Ling Holding Centre, a remote holding center in the New Territories near the mainland border where multiple detainees say they suffered abuse.
The HKBUSU Editorial Board confirmed over Facebook in the last few hours that Tang had also been released and was fine, but would have to report back to Chai Wan police station later.
when this Student journalist got arrested by HongKong police.
A police whispering to him，“u will b butt raped in detention center.”
The student shouted “i am not bruised now and i will not suicide. if anything happen to me，u know why！”#StandwithHKpic.twitter.com/yGnsv826D9— 巴丢草 Bad ї ucao (@badiucao) November 3, 2019
At around 5:30pm, police gave a relative brief account of the weekend via a livestream, sans question and answer session. They noted that 325 people had been arrested over the weekend, and expressed “deep regret over [the protesting journalists’] disrespectful act.”
It wasn’t the first time officers were forced to suspend a briefing as tensions between police and the press ratchet up.
Last week, a freelance journalist similarly caused the briefing to grind to a halt after she yelled out a speech condemning police violence towards reporters and shone a flashlight at the officers, a nod to the increasingly common police tactic of shining bright lights into reporters’ cameras to prevent them from filming or photographing police actions.
