The first journalist in Hong Kong to be found guilty of improperly accessing a local vehicle database today lost her appeal against the conviction and will have to pay a fine.
Bao Choy Yuk-ling, 39, was fined HK$6,000 (€769) last year for making false statements to the Department of Transport to access the car registration database, when in fact she sought to investigate. the police response to an attack on protesters during the 2019 anti-government protests.
The court rejected journalistic interest as a justification for searching the official records, a decision that raised concerns about press freedom violations early on, when the government was already restricting access to information.
Public broadcaster RTHK, suspended since she was indicted, then called the decision “a very dark day for all journalists in Hong Kong”.
Supreme Court Justice Alex Lee upheld the verdict, noting that there are only three options available on the application form for carrying out any search: transportation or traffic-related matters (which was chosen), legal matters, and buying or selling vehicles. And he recalled that journalism is not one of the options.
“I do not deny that the appellant was trying to obtain the information with good intentions. But as the magistrate had pointed out, in terms of conviction, having good intentions is not a justification,” Lee explained.
Today, flanked by veteran local journalists, Choy said she was disillusioned with the trial.
“It’s a decision that really impedes access to free information in the city, which means that it will create obstacles for the press to act as a brake on the abuse of power, and to control and hold the powerful accountable,” she maintained.
Choy added that she would make a decision on whether she will still try a final appeal.
The story Choy co-produced, titled “7.21 Who Owns the Truth,” won the Human Rights Press Chinese-language documentary award in 2021. The jury hailed it as “a classic investigative reporting.” that he had pursued “the smallest clues, interrogating the powerful without fear or favor”.
After the journalist’s conviction, two media outlets – Apple Daily and Stand News – were forced to close down by the authorities in a wave of repression of dissent following the 2019 protests in Hong Kong, a former British colony that returned to China. in 1997.
Some of the top leaders of the two media were also prosecuted.
Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai faces charges of collusion under a national security law enacted in 2020. Two former Stand News editors accused of sedition are under trial under a colonial-era law that has increasingly used to silence critical voices.
Hong Kong has dropped more than 60 places to 148th in the press freedom ranking released in May by Reporters Without Borders.
