In Hong Kong's newest battle against democracy and freedom of speech, the government is out to subdue the illegally operated Citizen's Radio, boradcasted from a small transmitter in Mong Kok "on an unoccupied frequency in the middle of the commercial FM band". How harmful could that be? Very, was the answer the Department of Justice gave out yesterday after numerous exciting twists in this ongoing court battle.
The government is charging the radio on operating without a licence and interfering with emergency service frequencies. However, just two days ago, Magistrate Douglas Yau Tak-hong at the Eastern Magistracy decided to dismiss 14 charges against the station, although upon review, decided to transferring the case to the High Court. The battle was initially won with a glimmer of hope when the Magistrate decided that the Telecommunication Ordinance was unconstitutional and in breach of both the Basic Law and the Bill of Rights. Yau said that the Broadcasting Authority should therefore work independent from the government.
But, as mentioned, this ruling was revoked because it could potentially create a legal vaccum for radio broadcast in the near future, before any new laws can be established. As the government seeks to further the penalty for Citizen's Radio to prevent them from resuming broadcast yesterday, we ask ourselves: exactly how many radio stations are there in Hong Kong?
According to blogs Beneath the Peak and EastSouthWestNorth, many of the world's metropolises have more than 30 radio stations that are independently run. For example, Sydney has almost 60 radio stations and Vancouver has 30, while both cities have significantly less population than Hong Kong. In fact, Hong Kong only has 13 radio stations, all either run by the government, commercial duopolies and BBC. This is, however, better than the situation in the highly state-regulated Singapore, where only 1 of 19 radio stations is independent of the government.
So how is the development of democracy in Hong Kong, do you think?
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