"Xinhua routinely keeps files on local journalists and closely monitors their work," Lee said (1998) "Those journalists falling into disfavor see their entry permits to China denied or their reporting efforts stymied by mainland authorities. Reliable veteran mainland journalists have been placed in local media. The jailing of several Hong Kong reporters on assignment to Beijing has further produced a chilling effect." Therefore, he believes that self-censorship is probably the most significant means of media control in Hong Kong.
"Clearly, self-censorship has emerged as one of the pressing problems facing Hong Kong journalists". Lo said early in 1999. Unless measures are taken to remedy the growing practice of self-censorship, Hong Kong's coveted press freedom will be seriously eroded."
On too many occasions, China gets away with infringement on people's intellectual rights. China's leaders have every right to make Hong Kong "more of a Chinese city" if they want, but not a Communist city; trampling on the very freedoms that it has pledged to uphold is a travesty, a burlesque behavior.
This bothers me: some people it doesn't bother.
For those of us whom it bothers, how do we fight back? Are we tilting a windmill of inevitability here? How do we defend the press freedoms of Hong Kong, encourage freedom and democracy for the people of China?
Some specific recommendations:
--Support organizations like the Hong Kong Journalists Association and World Press Freedom Committee and Freedom Forum others which stand up from freedom of the press.
--Pressure the People's Republic of China, at every chance, to follow international norms such as adherence to the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, particularly Article 19 on Freedom of the Press.
--Encourage activities of dissidents at every turn, as they protest disruptions of press freedom. For example, a U.S. media group sent a letter to Chinese President Jiang Zemin in January, 1999, denouncing the jail sentence of a computer engineer on charges of using the Internet to undermine the state. Calling the two-year jail term for Lin Hai "chilling in the extreme," the Committee to Protect Journalists asked Jiang to intervene in the case. "By imprisoning Lin your regime sends the message that China is afraid of information and not strong enough to tolerate freedom," it said in a faxed statement received in Shanghai.
