In another worrying sign for media freedom in Hong Kong, some local outlets took down reports covering controversial comments attributed to a senior Chinese Communist Party (CCP) official, prompting concerns they were pressured by Beijing to drop the stories.

In a Facebook post, the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA) demanded clarification of the remarks by head of the party’s Propaganda Department Huang Kunming, who reportedly warned senior media executives not to allow the city’s newsrooms to “become a base for interfering with mainland politics.”

HKJA chairman Chris Yeung said Huang’s remarks sounded like “an obvious case of telling media what they should do and what they should not do.”

The comments were “plainly a clear effort, a clear attempt, to influence the media sector here”, Yeung told AFP.

The furore started at a meeting on Tuesday in Beijing between a delegation of senior media figures from Hong Kong and Huang.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, delegation leader Siu Sai-wo, chief executive of Sing Tao News Corp, quoted Huang as saying he hoped that “Hong Kong media should not become a political base for interfering with the mainland.”

Video of Siu saying this can be seen below.

Three outlets that carried his comments — Cable News, Commercial Radio and TVB News — either took their reports offline or, in the case of TVB, cut the quote from later broadcasts, according to the SCMP.

Apple Daily reported that some local news sites removed references to the reported remarks after officials from Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong said that Huang’s comments were off the record.

Speaking to the SCMP after the articles were removed, Siu moved to clarify the comments he attributed to Huang, saying he was “flustered” as some of the delegation accused him of misquoting the official.

Having checked his notes, Siu said the “exact quote from Huang” was: “Under ‘one country, two systems’, [you] should prevent external forces from turning Hong Kong into a base for interfering with and destroying the mainland,” according to the newspaper.

According to the SCMP, Siu also said he was considering taking legal action over what he said were “untrue reports” about the controversy, though he did not explain that point further.

The HKJA said the incident was “highly unusual” and suggested either a case of self-censorship or external pressure on Hong Kong media.

Concerns about press freedom in Hong Kong have intensified after the government denied a visa to a British journalist, who had chaired a talk by an independence activist at the city’s press club in August.

Earlier this month China warned foreign countries not to “interfere” in Hong Kong’s unprecedented decision to effectively blacklist Victor Mallet, a senior Financial Times journalist, after the UK and other governments expressed alarm over eroding freedoms in the former British colony.

Hong Kong’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCC), where Mallet serves as vice president, regularly hosts talks by an array of speakers, including Chinese officials.

The club was pressured by authorities to scrap the talk by pro-independence activist Andy Chan but it had refused, saying it stands for freedom of speech and freedom of the press in the region, and “neither endorses nor opposes the views of its various speakers and panellists.”

With AFP.

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