Press ban risks undermining business confidence, UK minister warns
Source: South China Morning Post
By Bill Heaney
It’s good to know that the fight for a free press is ongoing across the world, where secrecy and misinformation abound at every level of government.
West Dunbartonshire Council must surely feel ashamed of themselves that official shutters are going up here too, especially at a time when the authority is in regular contact with the police about reports of lack of vigilance over the procurement of contracts valued at £9 million.
And when council officials and elected members of the SNP administration appear to be collaborating by banning and boycotting The Democrat for political reasons.
Spin doctors have been warning reporters to be careful about the legalities of reporting ongoing events at the Council when they should know better.
Such matters do not become sub judice leading to possible prosecution for contempt of court until persons are charged and the case against them becomes active.
At international level, Hong Kong’s decision to ban a foreign journalist risked undermining business confidence, a visiting British minister warned, as emotions over the state of the city’s freedoms see-sawed over whether another writer would be allowed entry to make public appearances.
In the end, Chinese dissident author Ma Jian passed through immigration smoothly and arts venue Tai Kwun backtracked on its much-criticised decision to cancel his two talks.
The heritage site which had originally turfed out Ma because it did not want to promote political interests said it was now satisfied after hearing him “clarify” he was speaking as a novelist and had no intention to use the platform for political purposes.
Even as the fate of Ma’s talks was settled by day’s end, worries simmered over the state of media freedom as the government banned Financial Times journalist Victor Mallet from entering the city late on Thursday.
Among those voicing fears was visiting British minister of state for Asia and the Pacific Mark Field, who warned it could risk having a negative effect on business in the city.
“I’m concerned that the increasing number of bits of pressure that are coming to the system of ‘one country, two systems’ will also undermine business confidence,” he told the Post.
Field noted that there had been much speculation a decade or so ago that Shanghai would usurp Hong Kong as a financial centre, but the former British colony’s status as ‘an open, free trading place has meant that Hong Kong has gone from strength to strength’.
“It would be in no one’s interest to see Hong Kong undermined,” he said. “My concern … is that these high profile cases, of undermining freedom of speech, and the freedom of the press, can only potentially undermine that economic success as well.”
He cautioned: “I very much hope that the Hong Kong authorities will think carefully about the way in which they deal with these matters in the future.”
Although the case in West Dunbartonshire is low profile at present, it is important in that the public should be kept informed of what is happening in the local authority to whom they pay their taxes.
Under the SNP administration, there has been ongoing criticism that the authority is not being run as it should be with too many decisions being taken by officers and elected members.
Criticism includes more powers being delegated to officials than some elected members of the Council consider fair and acceptable in a democracy.