A consultant of Reporters With out Borders was denied entry to Hong Kong on Wednesday whereas making an attempt to enter town on a fact-finding mission about shrinking press freedoms there, the group stated.
Aleksandra Bielakowska, a Taipei-based advocacy officer for the group, stated she had been detained for six hours at Hong Kong Worldwide Airport, the place she was questioned and her belongings searched a number of instances. She was later expelled with out rationalization.
Reporters With out Borders, which relies in Paris and advocates on behalf of journalists world wide, stated it was the primary time one in every of its representatives had been denied entry or held in Hong Kong.
“We’re appalled by this unacceptable therapy of our colleague, who was merely attempting to do her job,” Rebecca Vincent, director of campaigns for Reporters With out Borders, stated in an announcement.
The Hong Kong authorities stated it might not touch upon particular person instances, saying solely that its officers act in accordance with the legislation.
Ms. Bielakowska, a Polish nationwide, was touring with a colleague, the group’s Asia-Pacific bureau director, Cédric Alviani. Mr. Alviani was allowed to enter Hong Kong with out incident however returned to Taiwan in a while Monday.
The 2 had deliberate to fulfill with journalists and monitor the nationwide safety trial of a media government, Jimmy Lai, an ardent authorities critic and the proprietor of the now-shuttered Apple Day by day newspaper. Ms. Bielakowska visited Hong Kong final December to attend the opening of Mr. Lai’s trial.
The episode comes lower than a month after Hong Kong launched new nationwide safety legal guidelines, recognized collectively as Article 23 laws, that partially goal international interference and heighten the dangers for journalists who report critically on the federal government.
The native laws was enacted 4 years after China imposed its personal nationwide safety legislation on Hong Kong following widespread pro-democracy protests, a measure that has stifled dissent and led to the closure of a number of impartial media organizations.
Senior editors from a kind of shops, Stand Information, are on trial for publishing what the authorities have referred to as seditious materials. A verdict is anticipate later this month.
And final month, the U.S.-government funded information service Radio Free Asia introduced that it had closed its workplace in Hong Kong due to issues in regards to the new Article 23 legal guidelines.
Tiffany Might contributed reporting.
