A Hong Kong court has upheld the conviction and sentence of a journalist and former press union chief for obstructing police while reporting.
Veteran journalist Ronson Chan began serving his five-day sentence on Friday after Deputy High Court Judge Lily Wong upheld a lower court’s conviction for an incident in September 2022 when Chan refused to show his ID card to a police officer while reporting to a homeowners’ meeting.
In her writing judgmentwhich was not read in court on Friday, Wong rejected Chan’s argument that the police officer’s request was illegal and found that the reporter had obstructed the police by deliberately delaying the production of his identification.
According to the case details, Chan was covering the meeting at MacPherson Stadium in Mong Kok, where he was stopped by a plainclothes police officer who said he was acting “suspiciously” and asked to see his identification card.
He was arrested on suspicion of obstructing a police officer after allegedly failing to comply with requests to produce his identity card despite multiple warnings.
In court, Chan said he refused to provide his identification due to privacy concerns, referring to an incident during the 2019 protests when a police officer showed his ID card to his camera, which was broadcast live to thousands of viewers.
West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts found Chan due in September 2023a year after he was arrested.
Trial judge Leung Ka-kie said Chan deliberately stopped the police officer from carrying out her duties and that the officers’ continued questioning when they asked for his identification was “reckless and unreasonable”.
‘Social climate’
Noting online calls to protest the homeowners’ meeting, Judge Wong also agreed with the trial judge’s ruling that the police officers were justified in their actions to maintain public order.
“As the Magistrate ruled … given the social climate at the time, upholding the rules and maintaining order in public places in Hong Kong was important and commendable,” Judge Wong wrote.
Chan repeatedly questioned the officers and ignored warnings to calm down, and only offered a vague card holder, which amounted to deliberate obstruction, the judge added.
Chan’s lawyer, Steven Kwan, told the court that he would seek a certificate from the appeals court to take the journalist’s appeal to the city’s high court, but did not file a bail application.
With the certificate, Chan would be able to seek leave for a final chance to appeal his conviction and sentence.
Chan, who was elected as chairman of the Hong Kong Journalists Association in June 2021, resigned at the end of his term in June 2024, citing mounting pressure against him and the press union.
