#Censorship
Hong Kong public libraries purge 29 titles about the Tiananmen Massacre from the shelves

Hong Kong's libraries now have 392 fewer copies of books about the June 4, 1989 massacre than they did in 2009, an HKFP review has found.

In June 2009, the Home Affairs Bureau made public a spreadsheet of 149 titles about the 1989 June 4 massacre that were in Hong Kong’s public libraries at the time, with a total of 1,162 copies available for lending or reference. By inputting each title into the current online catalogue for public libraries, HKFP found that 29 of the titles — 26 in Chinese and three in English — were no longer available as of November 9.

Twelve years on, the number of June 4 titles that can be borrowed — including those that must be retrieved from reserves or requested from library staff — has dropped to 34 per cent, or 41 titles.

Readers must make an enquiry with a librarian and wait for over 30 minutes to retrieve a title from on-site reserves, library staff told HKFP. For a HK$3.3 fee, readers may place requests for the titles in advance, but would have to wait about a week for delivery.

Among the June 4 titles now purged from public libraries are ones published by the Hong Kong Alliance, as well as works by a former leader of the group who was handed a suspended jail sentence for his role in last year’s unauthorised vigil, and by former leaders of the 1989 protests now in exile overseas.

The Tiananmen Massacre on June 4, 1989 ended months of student-led demonstrations in China calling for democracy and other reforms. It is estimated that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people died when the People’s Liberation Army was deployed to crack down on protesters in Beijing.

Information on the event has in the past three decades been heavily censored in mainland China, both on and off the internet. Hong Kong’s freedom to commemorate the event, report on it or read books about it is seen as a litmus test of whether the city can safeguard its freedoms after the handover from Britain to China in 1997.//

Read the full article:
http://hongkongfp.com/2021/11/21/hong-kong-public-libraries-purge-29-titles-about-the-tiananmen-massacre-from-their-shelves/

Source: Hong Kong Free Press #Nov21

#TianamenMassacre #PublicLibrary #MemoryWar #June4 #Alliance #Erasure #Books

#Regime
HK public broadcaster removes social media pages of 12 popular programmes

Since one year ago, the Hong Kong public broadcaster #RTHK, with the change of management, has been removing programmes that the authorities deem "sensitive" from its website and restricting quality programmes from enrolling competitions.

On November 27, 2021,the broadcaster sneaked in a notice at the bottom of its website, saying that the station will halt the Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages of 12 shows from December 3, 2021 onwards.

The notice, however, didn't give any reasons to the halt.

The programmes affected are:

- This Morning;
- The Pulse;
- LegCo Review;
- Hong Kong Connection;
- This Week;
- Think About Thinking;
- Headliner;
- Hong Kong Stories – A Time to Mend;
- Rich Mate Poor Mate Series 2 and 3;
- Sign Language; and
- Knowledge Zone.

Most of these shows are no longer in production, including the axed popular political satire show Headliner.

While some of these social media pages have been dormant for periods ranging from around two months to more than two years, others have been popular among netizens and followed by many.

The Facebook page of Hong Kong Connection had 360,000 likes and followed by 440,000.

The Facebook page of Headliner had 420,000 likes and followed by 480,000.

The Facebook page of This Week had 340,000 likes and followed by 430,000;

The Facebook page of Think about Thinking had 87,000 likes and followed by 100,000.

Image: Stand News
Source: Citizen News; #Dec2
https://bit.ly/2ZMdTLg

#MemoryWar #Silence #Censorship #Headliner #HongKongConnection