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A consultant of Reporters With out Borders was denied entry to Hong Kong on Wednesday as he tried to enter the town on a fact-finding mission about shrinking press freedoms there, the group stated.
They have been detained for six hours at Hong Kong Worldwide Airport, the place they have been interrogated and their baggage searched a number of occasions, stated Aleksandra Bilakowska, a Taipei-based advocacy officer for the group. He was later expelled with out clarification.
Reporters With out Borders, which is predicated in Paris and advocates on behalf of journalists world wide, stated it was the primary time that one in all its representatives had been denied or barred from getting into Hong Kong.
“We’re shocked by this unacceptable therapy of our colleague, who was merely making an attempt to do her job,” Rebecca Vincent, marketing campaign director for Reporters With out Borders, stated in a press release.
The Hong Kong authorities stated it could not touch upon particular person circumstances, saying solely that its officers would act in accordance with the regulation.
Ms. Białakowska, a Polish citizen, was touring with a colleague, Cedric Alviani, the group's Asia-Pacific bureau director. Mr Alviani was allowed to enter Hong Kong with out incident, however returned to Taiwan afterward Monday.
The 2 had deliberate to satisfy with reporters and monitor the nationwide safety trial of Jimmy Lai, a media govt who was an ardent authorities critic and proprietor of the now-defunct Apple Day by day newspaper. Ms Białakowska 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, collectively generally known as the Article 23 regulation, which partly targets overseas interference and important reporting on the federal government. Will increase danger for journalists doing this.
The native regulation was imposed 4 years after China imposed its nationwide safety regulation on Hong Kong following widespread pro-democracy protests, a measure that stifled dissent and shut down many unbiased media organizations.
Senior editors of a kind of shops, Stand Information, are on trial for publishing what authorities have known as seditious materials. The choice is anticipated on the finish of this month.
And final month, US government-funded information service Radio Free Asia introduced it had closed its workplace in Hong Kong attributable to considerations about new Article 23 legal guidelines.
in tiffany Contributed to the reporting.