ARTICLE 19 and The Hong Kong Journalists Association
the incident. The day after the seizure, another member of the April 5th group was arrested. Responding to widespread criticism by the media and other sectors that the action was a violation of press freedom, the police argued that the tapes were required for the Director of Public Prosecutions to assess whether more serious charges should be laid against the suspects when they were next scheduled to appear in court.
The whole incident raised two important freedom of expression issues. The first was the underlying political nature of the police action directed against the April 5th Action Group. The action seemed designed to provoke a confrontation with a particularly vocal and radical section of the community who nevertheless were marching peacefully to participate in a lawful assembly to express their views. The political nature of the action has been corroborated by a letter later in October from the political adviser William Ehrman to Xinhua News Agency, leaked to the media, in which the British administration cites the arrest of the April 5th members as an indication of how the government was acting to ensure that Hong Kong was not being allowed to become a base for subversion against the Chinese government.
The second issue concerns the impunity with which the police, in an unprecedented action, chose to interpret the scope of their powers under the Police Force Ordinance to search for and seize raw footage, and the subsequent damage this action did to the media and to press freedom in the territory. Of particular concern, the Hong Kong Journalists Association pointed out in their strong criticisms of the seizure, was that such action directly threatened journalists' ability to gather news in the public interest. The HKJA said the action reduced the credibility of the media to function as an independent source of news, and undermined journalists' promises of confidentiality to sources since the police had the power to search for and seize journalistic information at will. If the police had the legal right to seize raw video footage, the HKJA argued, this might mean that other more sensitive information gathered in confidence would also be in jeopardy.
4.11.2 "The Loudhailer Five"
Five political figures belonging to the territory's first political party, the United Democrats of Hong Kong (UDHK), were convicted in July 1990 for using loudhailers and collecting donations without permission, and individually fined HK$150 on each separate count. The five, using small hand-held loudhailers, had addressed a sit-in at the Star Ferry concourse on the subject of the undemocratic features of the Basic Law, the post-1997 constitution. Their convictions were later overturned on appeal in January 1991 after the Chief Justice Sir Ti Liang Yang ruled the prosecution an abuse of the court process, but on the grounds that the ordinance had not been invoked for a very long time despite widespread use of loudhailers by tourist guides and shopkeepers.
Critics were quick to point out that the case appeared to be politically motivated - a form of harassment of political activists who were perceived to be unpalatable to China. To begin with, the provision of the Summary Offences Ordinance permitting the prosecution had been
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