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Hong Kong university student journalists seeking better access to government urge court to be ‘protector of free speech’
Despite easing of restrictions, two former editors push for ‘right to investigate’
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Two Hong Kong university student editors on Friday urged a court to be the “ultimate guardian and protector of freedom of speech” and allow them and their contemporaries to judicially challenge the government’s restriction on student reporters in covering official events.
Teenie Ho Kar-hei, then chief editor of Chinese University’s English magazine Varsity, and Xu Fangwen, former deputy chief editor of Baptist University’s San Po Yan, lodged a judicial review last year against the director of the Information Services Department.
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The pair sought to challenge the government’s reluctance to allow student reporters to cover official press conferences after they were stopped while covering the Legislative Council by-election for the New Territories East constituency on February 28 last year.
In the High Court on Friday, Gerard McCoy SC, for Xu, urged Mr Justice Thomas Au Hing-cheung to give them permission to proceed with the judicial review, arguing the ban breached the city’s Basic Law, or mini-constitution, and Bill of Rights.
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