A View from a journalist - Police Brutality on Press

(10 May) At the early stage of the anti extradition law amendment bill (anti-ELAB) movement in Hong Kong, journalists faced different degrees of abused by the HK police. It started with “f*ck the press mother” to “don’t shoot the press” and even the former Police Commissioner Stephen Lo said “we treated the press very politely”. I interviewed an experienced journalist regarding freedom of press in Hong Kong. He made quite an impressive comment that “actually we (journalists) should not become the focus of the news.”

I rarely said anything about the journalists in the past because we could not compare to what the protesters had personally sacrificed and the high price they paid. Therefore, I do not need to specifically put a crown on my head by attracting praises. It is better to lay low and it is sufficient enough for me to take more photographs.

Despite the police frequently yell “get back to the pedestrians pavement”, prohibit journalists to film beyond the seal off lines, push the journalists with their shields and batons in hostile manners and threaten us with pepper spray, I just treat these as part of the chaos. Even though I am discontented about their poor attitudes, I always think that we are just doing our jobs. However, I felt that media was the target of police operations at Mongkok last night.

Even in yesterday afternoon, I already learnt from my peers that media could become the major police operation targets. I personally heard police talked among themselves that ‘we filmed and photographed the journalists today.” At the end, there were quite a bit of news relating to the journalists came out yesterday:

1）A 13 year old student journalist was taken away by the police. They condemned this as ‘child labour’.

2）A Now TV journalist was stopped and searched by police at Tsuen Wan for ‘committing crime’.

3）Police officer strangled a cameraman from Apple Daily for 21 seconds causing the person suffocated and collapsed.

4）A female journalist of an internet media was hospitalised for severe head injury. 

5）Police refused to let a student journalist to pass even though the person showed a valid HK Journalist Association identity pass.

6）Police pushed journalists roughly and sprayed pepper mists on them many times during their disband operations.

7）Police officers sprayed pepper mist against journalists when they were stopped and searched.

8）Police officers treated journalists as if they were protesters by forcing them to knelt down; encircled them while prohibited them to film and take photos.

I can not say whether the police was targeting the media (generally) but obviously they were strategically targeting the journalists(last night). After all, there were large crowds of journalists in recent protests. The police do not believe the increasing numbers of journalists on the sites. Individual colleagues’ lack of professionalism impacts everyone in the industry. It is inevitable that journalists become police targets.

If they cannot directly force you out, they will use all sorts of methods to deter you from appear at the sites, such as keep pushing forward the seal lines to keep you further away; push you away ‘reasonably’ under the excuse of ‘police in performing duties’; spray pepper water or pepper mist onto your equipment - even you are not injury, you cannot stay at the sites if your camera and equipment are damaged. Of course, if something happens to you, you are definitely out of the sites straight away. 

Many of my journalist colleagues indicated that last night at Mongkok was similar to what happened during the besiege of HK Polytechnic University. It was not just that the streets were devastated and littered with medicines, bloody tissues, all sorts of materials; and many people wounded at the Ladies’ market. Police treated journalists as if they were protesters without any discernment in their big round up.

I never agree that "there is truth if there is media presence". Truth cannot be testified just by some photos or videos. Every journalist is doing their best to be objective through their camera lens. I believe that at least one more element of the truth will be revealed by one additional lens. The pictures displayed by many different lenses can be combined to show the possible perspectives of the holistic truth for further investigation, validation, and verification.It is not that there is truth simply because there are photographs. Honestly, the truth is still far away.

If the public wants to seek the truth, it is essential that there are facts to begin with. However if the press is not even allow to record the facts, it is pointless for seeking the truth. 

*The freedom of Press in HK has been dropped to historical low point of 80th places in the world from 2002’s 18th place since the beginning of the ranking system in the world. 

 *A survey conducted by HK Journalists Association on 225 members revealed that more than 65% of them (i.e. 145 people) indicated that they came across different forms of bully and violence treatments by police officers and people holding different political and social views in the course of their works. These included strong lights beams shone into their eyes, verbal abuses, being violently pushed, cover up their camera lens deliberately, seizure of their equipments, police sprayed pepper mists and fired tear gas at them within close distance.

Source: Iyho819 Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/p/CACSyHjFaRM/?igshid=ttmgyirabbiw

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