Stand-in's departure 'understandable'
Talk-show host Albert Cheng says that despite the pressures, he did not expect Allen Lee to quit
Commercial Radio host Albert Cheng King-hon, who quit talk show Teacup in a Storm after feeling 'suffocated by political depression', yesterday broke his silence on the departure of his stand-in.
Speaking of Allen Lee Peng-fei's decision, announced on Wednesday, to leave the show and resign from the National People's Congress, Cheng said he never expected someone who was acceptable to Beijing would also quit because of political pressure.
He told the South China Morning Post yesterday that he understood the pressure Mr Lee had been facing when he decided to go off the air after just two weeks. Mr Lee said on Wednesday he was no longer able to speak his mind freely.
'I didn't expect Allen would have quit the phone-in programme under pressure because I suppose he is a person accepted by Beijing,' Cheng said. 'I believe the incident was related to freedom of expression.'
Cheng quit on May 3, after saying friends had betrayed their political beliefs.
Yesterday, he said the pressure he felt two weeks ago was still there, but he would not be drawn on whether his departure or those of Mr Lee and Wong Yuk-man stemmed from an orchestrated, premeditated campaign.
Wong went off the air on May 13 as host of Commercial Radio's Close Encounter of the Political Kind, saying he needed a break. A critic of the Hong Kong and central governments, he was assaulted in Tsim Sha Tsui in March.
The departure of the hosts has prompted two Legislative Council panels to discuss the controversy next week.
Cheng has returned to Hong Kong after a two-week break in Europe and New York. He had claimed he and his family were under threat, and he decided to stop broadcasting until the end of the year.
Speculation built after he appeared at the Hong Kong Club yesterday because former chief secretary Anson Chan Fang On-sang was in the building at the time. But Cheng said he only had lunch with Democratic Party lawmaker Martin Lee Chu-ming, a longtime friend.
Cheng said he did not intend to shorten his holiday, which would last until the end of the year.
He brushed aside remarks by National People's Congress Standing Committee member Tsang Hin-chi, who has sought to play down the impact of the departures on freedom of speech by saying that talk-show hosts were only in the job to earn a living.
Commercial Radio chief operations officer Tony Tsoi Tung-ho, who replaced Mr Lee on yesterday's programme, said no one had put pressure on the station.
Two Legco panels will hold separate sessions on the controversy next Tuesday and Thursday after their chairmen failed to agree on whether to invite the radio hosts. Home affairs panel chairman Ip Kwok-him of the Democratic Alliance for Betterment of Hong Kong said the three should appear. James To Kun-sun of the Democratic Party, head of the security panel, had reservations about inviting the hosts to talk about their cases while police were investigating.
In a statement last night, Amnesty International Hong Kong said it had grave concerns about the resignation of the three talk-show hosts and the sudden transfer of Ng Chi-sum to another RTHK programme. It urged the government to uphold the rights guaranteed in the Basic Law to safeguard freedom of expression in Hong Kong.
