AP: Hong Kong's media voice concern over conviction of Falun Gong followers for obstruction

Thu Aug 15,10:36 PM ET
By MARGARET WONG, Associated Press Writer

HONG KONG - The conviction of 16 Falun Gong followers on obstruction charges drew mixed reactions from Hong Kong newspapers Friday, with some accusing the government of going too far.

The Chinese-language daily Ming Pao said police had overreacted and "a wrong prosecution resulted in a wrong verdict."

A magistrate convicted the Falun Gong practitioners on Thursday of causing a public obstruction during a protest March 14 outside the Chinese government liaison office here - in a case that many critics called a political attempt to appease Beijing.

Ming Pao noted that the trial hinged on laws intended to stop illegal street peddlers from blocking Hong Kong's sidewalks.

"It was not meant to target any political dissidents, restricting them from demonstrating and exercising their right of freedom of expression," Ming Pao editorialized.

[...]

When Hong Kong was reverted from British to Chines sovereignty in 1997, Western-style freedoms of speech and assembly were guaranteed for at least 50 years under a government arrangement dubbed "one country, two systems."

Frequent local protests by Falun Gong, which is outlawed in mainland China as an [Jiang's regime's slanderous words], however, have outraged many pro-Beijing figures who have demanded a local ban on their activities.

Hong Kong has stopped well short of that, and Falun Gong remains legal here, but opposition figures and human rights campaigners fear the territory's freedoms are being undermined.

Hong Kong officials and the magistrate who delivered the verdicts, Symon Wong, insisted that the case had nothing to do with anyone's Falun Gong practices.

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