IFJ condemns assault of Hong Kong Journalists

 

Media Release: China                                       

March 12, 2013

 

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) condemns two incidents of press freedom violations in China over the past week.

 

On 8 March, a Hong Kong journalist and activist Yang Kuang, was assaulted by a group of unidentified people and was illegally detained by police.Kuang arrived at the residence of Liu Xia, wife of Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo, who has been under illegal house arrest for more than two years in Haidan District, Beijing. There, the journalist was harassed, attacked and prevented from visiting Liu.  

 

Yang Kuang was then taken by police and detained for more than 40 hours. He was forced to leave Beijing on Sunday for “disturbing public order.” Kuang had told Hong Kong media that he was assaulted by police before they took him away.

 

In a separate incident, TVB cameraman, Tam Wing-Man, and Now TV cameraman Wong Kim-fai were assaulted by the gang of unidentified assailants. Wong was able to secretly film Tam being assaulted by the men. Tam suffered injuries to his head, chest and legs.

 

A journalist called the police, but when they arrived instead of detaining the assailants, the police took the journalists to the police station for investigation.

 

“The media has a duty to investigate and share information that is in the public interest. Attacks against journalists are an attack not only of the individual journalists but also of press freedom in general. The victimisation of the journalists by the police, who made no attempt to arrest the perpetrators of a crime, is distressing” said the IFJ Asia-Pacific office.

 

The Communist Secretary of China, Xi Jinping, and the new leadership have a duty to ensure the safety of journalists and foster an environment where they can carry out their professional duties without interference.

 

We urge the Central Authority of China to direct the Police Bureau to conduct a free and fair investigation of this case and make public their findings public.

 

    

For further information contact IFJ Asia-Pacific on +61 2 9333 0950 

 

The IFJ represents more than 600,000 journalists in 131 countries

 

Find the IFJ on Twitter: @ifjasiapacific

 

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