A Hong Kong man charged with inciting assault over online comments about staff from local broadcaster TVB has pleaded not guilty.
Fan Shi-man appeared at District Court on Monday morning for the first day of the trial. The 28-year-old auditor stands accused of one count of inciting common assault and one count of inciting others to cause grievous bodily harm with intent.
The court heard that Fan allegedly incited others to commit assault through comments made on the LIHKG forum from November 8, 2019, to May 8, 2020. The comments were related to TVB, a broadcaster that is seen by pro-democracy advocates to have government ties.
In a thread that cited a TVB report about roadblocks set up by demonstrators after the death of university student Alex Chow in November 2019, Fan left a comment that read, “beat [TVB staff] up one after another,” The Witness reported.
In another thread posted six months later that criticised TVB’s reporting of a scuffle at the Legislative Council (LegCo), Fan left a comment that read “I’ve always thought [we] need to break these fuckers’ arms and legs to make sure… they never post fake news again.”
The thread discussed an incident at the LegCo that saw chaos break out during a meeting and a lawmaker wheeled out on a stretcher. The thread’s title alleged that it was “clearly” pro-establishment lawmaker Aron Kwok who had attacked democrat Ray Chan, and yet TVB had written that it was Chan who had started the fight.
The title of the thread referred to the broadcaster as “CCTVB,” a nickname that pro-democracy supporters gave to it to acknowledge its perceived pro-Beijing affiliation.
Fan, who was arrested in July 2021, admitted under police caution that he had posted the offending comments on LIHKG.
The trial will continue on Tuesday. The prosecution said it would summon a high-level TVB employee to testify.
TVB was accused of biased coverage of the 2019 protests and unrest. It defended its neutrality after admitting that several of its clients suspended advertising with the company, a move that some believed was a form of protest.
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