Unlicensed Hong Kong radio station that hosted pro-democracy company goes off the air after 18 years

HONG KONG — An unlicensed pro-democracy radio station in Hong Kong shut down Friday after 18 years on the air. The closure of Citizens’ Radio got here on the eve of the twenty sixth anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover to China’s rule.

Since its launch in 2005, the station had hosted outstanding democracy advocates, together with former lawmakers Szeto Wah, Emily Lau, Albert Ho and Lee Cheuk-yan. But its founder, Bull Tsang. stated it was turning into more and more tough to ask company following the enactment of a Beijing-imposed legislation that jailed or silenced many activists.

Coupled with banking issues and restricted sources, Tsang stated he had no alternative however to say goodbye.

“It’s hard to let go. It’s like my third son,” Tsang, 67, advised reporters earlier than he hosted his final present on Friday night time.

The closure displays the collapse of town’s pro-democracy motion beneath the nationwide safety legislation that adopted large protests in Hong Kong in 2019.

After the legislation’s enactment three years in the past, dozens of civic teams disbanded, a lot of the metropolis’s main activists have been charged with alleged nationwide safety crimes, and two vocal media retailers shut down as their prime administration was accused of sedition or collusion.

Large numbers of democracy supporters additionally left Hong Kong after discovering that the promise that the previous British colony would retain Western-style freedoms for 50 years after its return to Chinese rule on July 1 in 1997 was turning into more and more threadbare.

On Saturday, town will mark its handover anniversary with official celebrations. The annual large pro-democracy protest held for years each July 1, nevertheless, seems to be a factor of the previous – whilst every day life has largely returned to regular following years of pandemic restrictions.

The League of Social Democrats chief Chan Po-ying advised The Associated Press that her political occasion was pressured to cancel its plan to stage a small-scale protest however that she couldn’t give extra particulars about this.

While Tsang‘s radio station has not been instantly focused by the safety legislation, the veteran pro-democracy activist stated his company have been unclear about whether or not their phrases could be in breach of the vaguely-defined pink traces.

He added that the station couldn’t pay hire after August since its checking account was just lately blocked from receiving donations.

Hang Seng Bank, which handles Tsang‘s account, stated in a reply to a request for remark from the AP that it can’t touch upon issues concerning particular person accounts.

Tsang stated the current occasions pressured him to finish his years of open defiance towards the federal government after officers rejected his request for a broadcasting license in 2006. Over the years, Tsang continued broadcasting in “civil disobedience” even after he was convicted and fined over unlicensed broadcasting and his radio station was raided by authorities.

Tsang stated he would possibly attempt to promote his inventive drawings to lift funds to proceed his work in one other approach. But even so, issues will not be the identical, he stated.