Opinion | Why Hong Kong independence activist talk at FCC must go on, even if the ideas don’t warrant a megaphone
Michael Chugani says government officials’ overreaction to the planned talk by a Hong Kong National Party co-founder at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club has provoked attention to a lost cause and displays a lack of understanding of local media freedom
Free speech is the heartbeat of the FCC. Asking it to self-censor is like asking it to put a gun to its head. Once it invited Chan, there was no turning back. If it did on Beijing’s order, its very existence as a free speech bastion would be a joke.
Beijing, Lam and Leung need to accept this reality, however unpalatable they find it. Yes, self-censorship exists in sections of the Hong Kong media. But overall media freedom is still intact. It’s a core value the public demands. The media must either swim with this or sink. So must the FCC, which has many local and foreign journalists among its members.
It’s a Hong Kong trait that the more you try to silence a voice, the louder it gets. There really wasn’t any need to silence Chan’s voice because it never resonated with the public. Most Hongkongers shrug off independence as a fantasy. By trying to silence him, Beijing has handed him a megaphone.