APEC ejects HK journalists who questioned Aquino
Print Edition
Officials at an APEC summit revoked the press credentials of a group of Hong Kong journalists who shouted questions to Philippine President Benigno Aquino III about his refusal to apologize for the killings of Hong Kong tourists in Manila three years ago.
Reporters from Now TV, Radio Television Hong Kong and Commercial Radio asked Aquino as he walked by them at the regional meeting in Bali if he would meet Hong Kong leader Leung Chun-ying and apologize to the families of the victims.
“Will you apologize to Hong Kong people for their real tragedy?” a woman reporter asked, TV footage showed. “Will you give an answer? It has been three years,” she said.
“So you are ignoring Hong Kong people, right?” another reporter asked.
Aquino did not reply. Now TV footage showed an APEC staff member telling the reporters: “You ambushed one of our visitors.”
Eight tourists and their guide were killed on a tourist bus by a dismissed Manila police officer in a daylong hostage crisis in 2010 that ended with a botched police rescue.
The Now TV footage showed another APEC staff member telling a reporter: “You know that the decency (includes) not screaming. You do understand that?”
The reporter responds: “I am asking, I’m not screaming, OK?” The staffer went on to tell him: “Now out!”
Gatot Dewabroto, a member of Indonesia’s APEC organizing committee, said the credentials of nine Hong Kong journalists had been revoked for behavior that was “excessive, disrespectful and disturbing the event.”
“We deemed it improper for media to act that way, as they didn’t talk normally but they were very demonstrative, like they were protesting,” he said.
They were free to remain in Bali, but could no longer access the media center or venues being used for the summit.
Despite protests from Hong Kong’s main journalist group, Aquino’s spokesman also said the journalists had “crossed the line” by aggressively questioning him.
A journalist at Now TV said three of its reporters were briefly detained by Indonesian police following the incident.
“They were detained for four hours on Monday afternoon. There were three of them, including one text reporter and two cameramen, being detained,” Daphne Lo, senior reporter of Now TV, said.
Sham Yee-lan, chairwoman of the Hong Kong Journalists’ Association, said Aquino’s government had “yet to provide a satisfactory explanation” as to why the eight Hong Kongers had died in the police rescue and the journalists in Bali were doing their job.
“The barring of the media for asking critical questions is an outright infringement of press freedom that is totally unacceptable,” she said.
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