GOVERNOR Chris Patten yesterday urged Beijing, which has just released a Hong Kong reporter after three years in jail, to let reporters in the territory write without fear after it reverts to China in July.
China released a prominent Hong Kong journalist, Xi Yang (40), last Saturday after he had served three years of a 12 year prison term on spying charges.
"We have our own system, and journalists in our system are not put in prison for embarrassing the government by revealing things the government might not wish to have revealed," Mr Patten told a conference of the Commonwealth Journalists' Association.
"If it were other than that in Hong Kong, there would not be many journalists free on the streets," Mr Patten said. "The important thing is that our system, under which journalists can write without fear or favour, should continue."
Analysts have been wondering if Mr Xi's sudden release was an attempt by China to calm a heated debate over its plan to roll back civil liberties in Hong Kong when the territory reverts to its control at midnight on June 30th.
A China controlled panel last week listed a string of laws for repealing, including parts of the Bill of Rights and two Hong Kong laws that allow political demonstrations and the free association of groups such as political parties.
The plan has earned China rebukes from Britain, the United States and pro democracy parties in Hong Kong. China also plans to scrap Hong Kong's elected legislature.
Yesterday Hong Kong democracy activists staged a small but noisy protest outside China's de facto embassy to demand the release of at least 13 dissidents recently reported to have been jailed or arrested in south western Guizhou province. The dissidents had been accused of counter revolutionary activities linked to their pro democracy campaigning.
"We are afraid that our freedoms and liberties will be infringed in the future," said Mr Andrew To, who led the demonstration outside the Xinhua News Agency office. About 20 members of a Hong Kong alliance supporting China's beleaguered democracy movement organised the protest.
A protest organiser, Mr Lau Shan Ching, said China's release of Mr Xi was marred by the latest news about jailed dissidents. "We see China release Xi Yang, but then we see China has arrested 13 dissidents. So we see China does not change its attitude on human rights," Mr Lau said.
"After the handover, some dissident in Hong Kong may be put into jail," he said.
Mr Patten, meanwhile, said censorship was an even bigger threat to the press than the danger of being locked away, and he hoped Beijing would notice the reaction to Mr Xi's release and the value Hong Kong people place on freedom.
"Self censorship or censorship at the news editor's desk is probably more of a realistic threat in tomorrow's world - I don't say necessarily in Hong Kong - than handcuffs and barred windows," he said.
Britain and China also ran into another snag yesterday on details of the handover, failing to agree on the size and timing of the advance party of People's Liberation Army troops that China wants to send to Hong Kong before July 1st.
"The main issue, I suppose, is that we pointed out to the Chinese side that their proposals for the numbers of advance personnel are too high and timing of their arrival is too early," said Mr Alan Paul, British representative at the talks.
"So we put forward a proposal of our own which we regard as reasonable, one which we hope they will consider positively and give us a positive reply at today's meeting," Mr Paul said.