RTHK staff union and Hong Kong journalists’ group get nod to launch ‘important freedom of speech’ court challenge over watchdog’s satire show warning

A Hong Kong court has granted an application for judicial review challenging a warning from the communications watchdog that led to the suspension of a long-running political satire show by the city’s public broadcaster.

The legal bid, jointly filed by RTHK’s Programme Staff Union and the Hong Kong Journalists Association, seeks to overturn a ruling by the Communications Authority that suggested the popular television show Headliner had “denigrated and insulted” the police force.

“It would be a very important court case concerning the freedom of speech in Hong Kong,” Gladys Chiu Sin-yan, the union’s chairwoman, said on Tuesday.

In May, the authority issued RTHK a warning over an episode of the show on February 14, which portrayed police as trash, and implied they hoarded masks and other personal protective equipment at the expense of the medical sector during the coronavirus pandemic.

The authority said the programme had “denigrated and “insulted” the police, and the jokes were “factually inaccurate”.

RTHK chief Leung Ka-wing originally defended the show in March, but the station later offered a public apology after the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau increased the pressure by ordering the station, which it oversees, to take disciplinary action against the staff responsible for the breaches of the code of practice.

The political show, which ran for 30 years, was eventually suspended when its season ended in June.

In their judicial review application, the union and the journalists’ group argued the authority misclassified Headliner as a personal views programme, without due consideration to its substantive content and its satirical nature.

“We wish to safeguard the room for political satire through the judicial review and overturn the case for freedom of speech,” they said in a joint statement.

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To fight the court battle, the groups said the union would raise funds among its staff, and the journalists association would accept unconditional donations.

RTHK is presently the subject of a management review led by civil servants following a series of controversies over its content. The move has triggered accusations that the administration is trying to erode the broadcaster’s independence.

The broadcaster also came under fire for a March episode of news programme The Pulse, in which a World Health Organisation representative was pressed over the body’s stance on membership for Taiwan.

Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Edward Yau Tang-wah said the line of questioning had been a violation of Beijing’s “one-China” policy, which considers the self-governing island part of China.

Separately, more than 400 former staff at local broadcaster Cable News published a full-page petition in two newspapers on Tuesday against the management’s abrupt decision to fire three veteran engineers.

They slammed the move as a “heavy blow” to the newsroom and staff morale, and urged the new management to explain the incident and stop any “unreasonable reshuffle”.

Cable News was earlier rocked by a major reshuffle as three staff were named to take over the news department, two of whom were brought in from Hong Kong Open TV.

The petition described the trio as having “qualifications and reputations questioned by the industry”, and said the reshuffle had led to public concerns that the station’s principle of upholding professionalism would be sacrificed.

More than 200 current staff signed a petition on Saturday, while the chief financial officer, Kwok Chi-kin, said the dismissal was the result of a review of parent company i-Cable’s organisational structure and human resources.