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An advocacy employee for the Paris-based press freedom group Reporters With out Borders has been denied entry to Hong Kong, en route to watch the nationwide safety trial of pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai.
Taipei-based Aleksandra Bielakowska was held for six hours, searched and questioned after arriving at Hong Kong’s Worldwide Airport on Wednesday, the group stated in a press release.
She had been planning to fulfill with journalists within the metropolis within the wake of a stringent new safety regulation handed final month below Article 23 of town’s Fundamental Regulation, and to watch a listening to in Lai’s ongoing trial, the group stated.
“[They asked] what I am doing right here, if it is a work-related go to. I stated in fact, sure, as a result of I am [an] NGO employee,” Bielakowska stated in an interview with RFA Cantonese on Thursday after her return to Taiwan.
“They searched my belongings, in depth, intimately — they scanned them twice, checked my sneakers, all the things, checked how a lot cash I had,” she stated, including that 12 officers and employees have been watching her the entire time she was being interviewed and searched.
“The one that questioned me was an immigration officer, plus there was a customs officer, however I could not inform if there have been any police or plainclothes officers within the room, as a result of they hadn’t given me any IDs,” Bielakowska stated. “However there have been some individuals who did not appear to be immigration officers.”
Finally, she was given a discover of refusal of entry, with a motive she described as “nebulous.” Immigration officers refused to make clear the explanation for the choice, even when requested repeatedly, Bielakowska stated.
Hong Kong’s immigration authorities have a said coverage of not commenting on particular person instances. A type handed to Bielakowska stated solely that she could be “imminently/instantly” faraway from town “inside an inexpensive time,” and that this justified her detention.
Article 23
The Safeguarding Nationwide Safety Regulation, often called “Article 23,” was billed by the federal government as a approach to shield town from interference and infiltration by “hostile overseas forces” that Beijing blames for waves of mass common protests in recent times.
However its critics — and among the metropolis’s residents — say it’ll probably have far-reaching results on human rights and freedom of expression that go additional than the 2020 Nationwide Safety Regulation below which Lai is being prosecuted, with a far broader attain and harder penalties.
Jimmy Lai stands accused of “collusion with overseas forces” and faces a possible life sentence, but the case towards him depends closely on opinion articles printed in his now-shuttered flagship Apple Every day newspaper.
Bielakowska, who was allowed into Hong Kong in December 2023 to watch the beginning of Lai’s trial, stated Reporters With out Borders, or RSF, is not a political group and that she wasn’t doing something “seditious.”
“We simply battle for the rights of journalists and press freedom world wide,” she stated. “It is our obligation as an NGO to attend the hearings and the trials.”
Bielakowska’s colleague, Asia-Pacific Bureau Director Cédric Alviani, was allowed to enter Hong Kong, however returned to Taipei the following day “for safety causes,” she stated.
‘Dire erosion’
RSF stated it was “appalled” by the remedy of Bielakowska, who was “merely attempting to do her job.”
“We’ve by no means skilled such blatant efforts by authorities to evade scrutiny of court docket proceedings in any nation, which additional highlights the ludicrous nature of the case towards Jimmy Lai, and the dire erosion of press freedom and the rule of regulation in Hong Kong,” RSF’s Director of Campaigns Rebecca Vincent stated in a press release, calling for an instantaneous rationalization from the Hong Kong authorities.
Vincent stated the rest of Lai’s nationwide safety trial “can’t happen in darkness.”
“The world should know what is occurring in Hong Kong, which has implications for world press freedom,” she stated.
The group stated it was the primary time any of its representatives has been denied entry or questioned at Hong Kong’s airport. Its employees had t
raveled there with out hindrance in June and December 2023, and have been in a position to meet with journalists and diplomats, in addition to monitoring court docket proceedings with none issues, it stated.
RSF stated it recurrently displays trials world wide as a part of its regular work defending press freedom – from proceedings towards journalists in Türkiye, to the continued US extradition case towards Julian Assange in UK courts.
Plunging rank
Hong Kong ranks one hundred and fortieth out of 180 in RSF’s 2023 World Press Freedom Index, having plummeted from 18th place up to now twenty years. The remainder of China ranks 179th out of 180 nations and territories.
To Yiu-ming, a former assistant professor on the Division of Journalism at Hong Kong’s Baptist College, stated the questioning of Bielakowska would ship a robust message to overseas journalists and worldwide organizations that comply with developments in Hong Kong.
“Most significantly, it will have a damaging influence on the way in which that overseas media and the worldwide group view Hong Kong, notably the influence of the Article 23 laws on press freedom in Hong Kong,” To informed RFA Cantonese in an interview on Thursday.
He stated that reasonably than laying down clear tips about who can be denied entry, they’re continuing on a case-by-case foundation.
“I believe [such cases] can be topic to assessment by nationwide safety police,” To stated.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
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