mandag 6. april 2020

Hong Kong Journalists Under Pressure Over Taiwan WHO Reporting

Hong Kong government broadcaster RTHK is under pressure from government officials after it aired an interview with a World Health Organization (WHO) official in which the interviewer touched on repeated calls from the democratic of island of Taiwan that it should be allowed to join as a member state. RTHK on Thursday rejected criticism that it had breached the terms of its mission during the interview.

A Hong Kong government statement had said that as one its departments, RTHK should not deviate from the understanding that WHO membership is based on sovereign states, and the Director of Broadcasting "should be responsible for this." But RTHK said the episode had looked at various responses across the world to the coronavirus emergency, with Taiwan the focus of just part of the program, and journalists hadn't once referred to it as a country, an idea that is anathema to Beijing.

The WHO ended Taiwan’s observer status at its annual World Health Assembly in 2016, the same year President Tsai Ing-wen, of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, was elected.