XN000022-1995-11-20 — Page 6

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When our main satellite television station was taken over, it did unfortunately, we were told for commercial reasons, lose the BBC World Service. It was taken over by a Western based company. I'm delighted to say that the BBC World Service re- emerged shortly thereafter on a cable service owned by a local Chinese entrepreneur. So maybe that raises one or two questions about the relationship between Western values and Asian values. I'm not quite sure.

I do feel extremely strongly that just as human rights are universal, so the responsibilities of owners and management in the media are universal as well. I don't know how you can make passionate speeches or declarations about freedom of speech when you're addressing shareholders in Europe or North America but behave totally differently when you're running your service in Asia or Africa or another part of the world. I think that universality should apply both to the commercial ethics of media proprietors as well as to the rights which, whose expression has made many of them so passingly well off.

Question: Governor Patten, do you think that freedom of the press and other rights can survive in Hong Kong without the Bill of Rights? Are they protected sufficiently under the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law, in your opinion?

Governor: They are protected in the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law and don't forget that it's not the Bill of Rights which is entrenched, it's the International Covenants, which themselves give guarantees to freedom of speech, which are entrenched in Hong Kong's constitution, both before and after 1997. But if today we're faced with threats, or some would have it that they were promises, that laws would be put back on the statute book, which were clearly infringing the International Covenants, then I'm not sure what signal is being sent in those circumstances about a commitment to free speech, a free media, after 1997. But it's the International Covenants which, entrenched in the Basic Law for example, guarantee freedom of press after 1997, as well as the agreements freely entered into and tabled at the United Nations in the Joint Declaration.

Question (Frances Moriarty, RTHK): On the question of the proposals that you've made to China, one understands that these are diplomatic at the moment, but there is considerable concern about the Official Secrets Act and what we would have after 1997, as well as the question of sedition etc., as you know, that you have to pass laws on. Are you able to comment in at least any kind of global sense on the kind of principals that you would be applying in bringing proposals to the Chinese?