Скачать или смотреть HONG KONG: INQUIRY INTO ALLEGATIONS AGAINST GOVERNMENT

(7 Aug 2000) Cant/Eng/Nat
XFA
An enquiry has opened in Hong Kong into allegations that the government pressured a leading academic to stop conducting polls showing Hong Kong leader Tung Chee-hwa's declining popularity.

The university appointed panel began hearing pollster Robert Chung's claims on Monday, amid fears that academic freedoms are crumbling in the territory.

Robert Chung, a respected pollster for Hong Kong University appeared before an internal enquiry investigating allegations of political interference by the Hong Kong's chief executive's office.

Chung was ordered to stop his work, after he published a poll showing a decrease in public support for the territory's chief executive Tung Chee-hwa.

SOUNDBITE: (Cantonese)
"I hope the outcome of this hearing will ease the anger and grievances that the Hong Kong people have been feeling recently. I will try my best to cooperate, and I will tell the truth."
SUPER CAPTION: Robert Chung, Hong Kong University Pollster

Hong Kong's leader, Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa, has denied trying to stop the polls, which show a decline in his popularity.

Tung declined to speak to the three-member panel, led by a former judge.

Witnesses are not testifying under oath and the panel can not force anyone to appear before it.

Chung spent much of the morning talking about his career as a pollster, but he did not immediately discuss the alleged pressure over the Tung polls.

UPSOUND: (Cantonese)
"We used our own funds to conduct such polls"
SUPER CAPTION: Robert Chung, Pollster

The polls appeared in an article in the South China Morning Post, a respected English-language daily.

Chung said he has surveyed public opinion on the popularity of local politicians and the government, as well as topics including Tibet and Taiwan.

Tibet and Taiwan are extremely sensitive issues for mainland China, and Chung said that his methodology has been attacked through the years, mainly by pro-Beijing newspapers.

Chung said his polling methods were similar to established practices in the
Western world.

Chung said he did provide some written explanations of his work, but they were not printed by the newspaper.

However, Chung acknowledged that some of his survey samples involved responses from just 500 people, which he considered a minimum reliable number for Hong Kong with its population of slightly less than 7 million.

Many nationwide surveys in the West would take responses from about 1,000 people, Chung said, acknowledging this would be preferable.

Students attacked the panel as inadequate for getting to the bottom of the controversy.

The university students' union issued a statement saying the hearing might not be fair or detailed, and called for a more thorough probe of the affair by Hong Kong lawmakers.

A number of Hong Kong politicians agree with the inadequacy of an internal university enquiry with no powers, and vow to raise the case in the legislative council.

Cyd Ho, Frontier Party former legislator, also criticized the role played by Andrew Lo, Tung Chee-hwa's senior special advisor, who asked the university chiefs to stop Chung's polls.

SOUNDBITE: (English)
"After the opening of the next legislative council, I'm convinced that a special select committee should be set up to look at political interference as a whole and to study the work schedule of Mr Andrew Lo and his relationship with the Chief Executive, to see whether there's a lot of other political interference has been going on."
SUPER CAPTION: Cyd Ho, Frontier Party former legislator


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