Page 401 or
Page 461 of 498
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
505
Let us now go back to the original motion. I was originally in support of Ms. Ada Wong's motion. I was quite relieved to hear Mr. WEN Choy-bon saying that it is our existing policy that it would not be suitable for the Council to undertake censorship of the content of performances. However, after hearing the Chairman out, I am starting to worry again. The Chairman touched on whether the Council should approve performances that affect our relationship with the outside or that are of instigating nature. He left members of the public the more worried about this Council's policy.
Today's original motion seeks to allay the worries of the public and art workers about the transition in 1997. I mentioned at our Annual Debate that a slow trend was beginning to develop in the past year. As put by Mr. PAO, whether on politics or obscenity, there has been this trend of tightening up and that tightening trend is making the public and art workers worry. In order to balance artistic freedom and the interest of the community as a whole, we do not propose no bars so that anything goes. We are definitely not saying this. However, from past social experience, the best way to balance the interests of both sides is not pre-censorship, but to make relevant laws the basis. If anyone violates the law, he is to be punished. I am speaking of 2 different approaches. The first one grants freedom but holds one responsible for any wrong saying or deed. The other one is of pre-censorship, granting no freedom at all for you to violate the law. If anything does not comply with the law, you will not be given a chance to pursue it.
Faced with the choice between these 2 approaches, we feel that the most appropriate thing to do is to continue as we did in the past. I mean not to censor the contents of programmes. Some speakers before me asked whether we are doing away with terms and conditions so that we grant approval to all applications. Of course not. That is simply not true. By censorship, we are talking about pre-censorship of the contents, not whether different performances comply with the terms and conditions of hire. The topic under discussion should be whether to impose pre-censorship on the content of programmes.
Based on the above points, we support the spirit of the original motion by Ms. Ada WONG. We hope that the Council will reaffirm its commitment to the freedom of art workers. We hope that during this period of transition, the general public and art workers will be free of worries that their degree of freedom will be tightened up. This point lays the foundation of a stable transition. We are not imposing any system to do so. Therefore, Mr. Chairman, I speak and have spoken in support of the original motion by Ms. Ada WONG.
MR. STANLEY NG WING-FAI (in Cantonese): Today we meet for the first time after our meeting with the Chief Executive Mr. Tung. Mr. Tung spoke about some rather vague, spiritual concepts. In fact, vague words only serve to
Page 461 of 498