In A Rare Win In Hong Kong, A Court Overturned This Journalist’s Conviction For Doing Her Job
Bao Choy was found guilty of “making false statements” to access a public database for a piece critical of Hong Kong police.
In a rare win for press freedom in Hong Kong, a court has overturned the conviction of a journalist who was found guilty of a crime after she used a public database for a piece critical of Hong Kong police.
Bao Choy, also known as Choy Yuk-ling, had worked on an investigation into Hong Kong police’s failure to respond to a mob attack on pro-democracy protests in July 2019.
During the attack, a group of men dressed in white stormed a train station, chasing and beating pro-democracy protesters and passengers with sticks, leaving 45 people injured, including a pregnant woman.
Despite thousands of calls, police didn’t arrive at the scene until 39 minutes after the attack started, when the attackers had already left.
The incident is one of the most consequential of the 2019 Hong Kong protests and undermined public confidence in the police, who have since sought to rewrite the narrative by calling it a clash between “evenly matched rivals,” according to the Washington Post.
As part of her investigation into the attack at Yuen Long, Choy had used a public database to look up license plates of the suspected attackers.
The license plate searches “revealed links between allegedly attackers and influential pro-Beijing village committees,” the Guardian reported.
She was then arrested and found guilty in April 2021 for “making false statements” to access the public vehicle registration database.
The court said that Choy had violated Hong Kong’s Road Traffic Ordinance because “reporting and newsgathering is not connected to traffic and transport related matters.”
Choy was ordered to pay a fine of 6,000 Hong Kong dollars ($774). She originally faced up to a six month prison sentence, but it was commuted considering the awards and the merits of her work.
It was the first time a member of the news media has been prosecuted in Hong Kong for reporting, according to the Washington Post.
The verdict drew widespread criticism for setting a precedence of a crackdown on press freedom in Hong Kong.
Choy later appealed, and on Monday June 5, five judges at a court voted unanimously to overturn Choy’s conviction.
The court said that Choy may not have not knowingly made false statements as other news companies had also filed similar applications for information, according to the New York Times.
The judges said that the previous verdict was a “substantial and grave injustice” towards Choy as it assumed she had broken the law knowingly.
“It seems I haven’t felt happy about something in a long time,” Choy said after the ruling. “Maybe a lot of people feel the same way. So let us all enjoy this moment of happiness.”
Her RTHK documentary “7.21 Who Owns The Truth?” was awarded the Kam Yiu-yu Press Freedom Award, one of the highest journalistic honors in Hong Kong, in 2021.
