Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee has refused to comment on reports received by the city’s largest press group that reporters had been followed by unknown men.
“I will not spend time to talk about individual self-speculation or perception. But if anybody wants to seek assistance from the police, they can do it,” Lee said in response to a question from an HKFP reporter during his weekly press conference on Tuesday.
The city’s largest press group, the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA), said last week it had received a number of reports of journalists being tailed.
HKJA said journalists from several outlets had said two men had attempted to tail them after attending the Stand News trial at the District Court in Wan Chai last month.
The reporters told HKJA that they suspected the men of being law enforcement officers, and that the men had shown their credentials to court security.
In a separate incident, an HKFP court reporter was followed from her home to her workplace last month. The incident was reported to the police.
Following HKJA’s statement, the police slammed the press group over “unverified speculations” that the men following reporters at the District Court were members of law enforcement.
Joe, an executive committee member of the HKJA, said on Commercial Radio last Tuesday that its statement had to be interpreted as a whole.
“The last sentence of our statement said that if the two men were not law enforcement officers, we hope that the police could investigate and follow up on the matter. We never said they must be law enforcement officers,” he said.
Referring to journalists’ allegations that the two men had shown their credentials to court security officers, he added that people would question where the pair’s credentials were from, such as the Judiciary, the police force, or other law enforcement.
“We are not only a media industry group, we are also a union, we have to defend our members’ rights,” Joe said.
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