Attacks on the media threaten democracy
The footage is harrowing. Live streaming online on June 21, a young female journalist reports from the front line of an altercation at Yuen Long subway station in Hong Kong. Inside the fare gates, protesters returning from a march downtown are confronted by a mob of about 100 white shirtclad thugs armed with metal bars.
Her voice shakes and her breathing is heavy, but Gwyneth Ho of Stand News continues livestreaming, capturing the clashes between the thugs and protesters. Suddenly, one of the thugs turns and attacks Ho, knocking her to the ground.
She gets back up just in time to record another attack as several of the white-clad men beat a helpless man senseless. The journalist becomes the target again, knocked down and subjected to another pummelling with sticks and rods as nearby people plead: “Don’t hit the journalists!”
Ho was left bleeding and injured from the attack. In total, at least 45 people were injured, including at least four journalists. The thugs were later confirmed by police to have members associated with the Triads, Chinese organized crime syndicates, within their ranks.
Over the past few weeks, journalists in Hong Kong have been covering the resistance to a controversial bill that would allow for extradition from Hong Kong to jurisdictions that it does not have an extradition agreement with, most notably mainland China.
The footage captured by Hong Kong media has been essential in recording excessive use of police force. The link between a free and vibrant press and the defence of human rights in Hong Kong does not end there. Human rights students from around the world, including from the international human rights program at the University of Toronto, teamed up with Amnesty International to create the Digital Verification Corps. The corps focuses on techniques to help verify the accuracy of video footage. It didn’t take long for Amnesty to make use of these skills: they verified 20 videos of 14 incidents during June 12 protests of excessive use of force by police in violation of international human-rights law.
The attacks on journalists in Hong Kong are part of a broader pattern. In 2018, the Committee to Protect Journalists found that the number of journalists murdered in reprisal for their work nearly doubled to 34, including the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul last October.
Canada has not been immune. In November 2018, the Supreme Court forced Vice Media journalist Ben Makuch to hand over all communications with a source who was accused of terrorism. Last January, the RCMP prevented reporters from accessing a protest site in northern B.C.
In a time of increasing global authoritarianism, we see firsthand the importance of a free and independent press as a key pillar in any democratic society. Without voices like Ho’s holding governments to account, many more people are likely to suffer her fate.