OPERATORS at a paging firm yesterday appeared to be ignoring an order from their bosses to relay messages referring to the Falun Gong. Pager calls placed by the Sunday Morning Post naming Falun Gong were still not being relayed by CM Telecom International yesterday afternoon. Repeated messages arranging meetings to discuss the religious sect in Hong Kong were not sent even though they were taken by operators, who are based in Shenzhen. Speaking from the company's Shenzhen office, Supervisor Yoki Tsang blamed the relocation of signal transformers for the failures. But non-Falun Gong messages sent immediately afterwards were transmitted. 'We have written a letter to the [Office of the Telecommunications Authority] and assured them that we will amend our old practices with immediate effect. We will send out all messages regardless of whether it is Falun Gong or not today,' said Ms Tsang. She claimed the firm's previous practice was to advise callers to leave a telephone number instead of a message if the content was related to Falun Gong. The telecom authority had earlier expressed concern and written to the company to ask for an explanation. Yesterday the authority said it would monitor the company's operations to ensure it complied with licence requirements. Paging companies can only refuse to relay messages if they are obscene and vulgar or if they may lead to activities banned by SAR laws. CM Telecom is run in partnership with the state-owned China Motion Telecom Development.
