Beijing 'intimidating' Hong Kong Critics

Chinese officials are using scare tactics to force influential critics in the Hong Kong media to quit their posts, a former lawmaker and radio DJ said yesterday.

Raising fresh fears about the erosion of free speech in the former British colony, Allen Lee said he and two other radio presenters had been forced off the air because they advocated greater democracy.

Lee told an inquiry that his family has been threatened by mainland officials and his colleagues had been reduced to tears by the intimidation from Beijing.

China's crackdown on opposition has manifested itself in a more heavy-handed approach in recent months to exert greater control over the territory.

In testimony before Hong Kong's legislative council, Lee refused to name the Chinese officials who had contacted him, but he said the forced resignations indicated a crackdown on dissent.

The other two DJs, Raymond Wong and Albert Cheng, did not testify. Cheng said he was afraid that police protection was inadequate. Wong's whereabouts are unknown.

Lee, who left his post as Hong Kong representative to the mainland's National People's Congress and host of the popular Teacup in a Storm radio programme last month, said he could understand why his colleagues were frightened.

"I have never seen Raymond Wong trembling like that and I've never seen Albert Cheng crying so badly," he told the inquiry.

The resignation of Lee has shocked many in Hong Kong at a time of growing concerns that the promised autonomy is being eroded. Last month, the Beijing parliament granted itself new powers to deny Hong Kong the right to directly elect its own leader in 2007.

Amid a spate of reports about intimidation of prominent democracy advocates, more than 400 academics sponsored a full-page newspaper advertisement yesterday saying the resignations of the radio hosts was a "red alert".

"Today there is growing alarm at the threat to the freedom of speech and we need to be vigilant against the signs of its erosion," said the advertisement in the Chinese-language newspaper Apple Daily. The academics vowed they would not be intimidated into silence.

In recent weeks, Hong Kong's newspapers, which are far freer than those on the mainland, have reported the offices of pro-democracy lawmakers being smeared with excrement, and triad gangsters issuing death threats to opponents of Beijing.

It is believed that Beijing has stepped up the pressure ahead of the September legislative elections in Hong Kong to select 30 of the 60 lawmakers.