Popular Hong Kong Show Host Threatened for Exposing Organ Harvesting

Based on an original report from Minghui.org

Hong Kong current affairs show host Rachel Wong was recently threatened by police from Mainland China for exposing forced organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners on one of her YouTube channels. Wong says police officials told her relatives in China to tell her to stop broadcasting her programs or face arrest under the new National Security Act – a draconian law that gives Chinese authorities broad powers to forcibly remove people from Hong Kong to face prosecution in Mainland China.

About Wong

Rachel Wong is the host of the Chinese-Language Epoch Times Cantonese-language talk shows, “Are You Kidding Me” and “Shishan’s Outlook.” Her popular show covers topics related to current affairs in China and her shows air daily on YouTube.

Wong is also a front-line reporter and has done live programming on her shows. On August 31, 2019, she witnessed police officers firing guns at a protester in Causeway Bay. During the live broadcast of the September 15 Northpoint Parade that year, she was attacked by pro-CCP (Chinese Communist Party) activists. She also previously exposed a fake journalist sent by the CCP during an interview.

Wong also practices Falun Dafa. Because the spiritual practice is persecuted by the CCP, she has not returned to China for many years. The person interrogated by the police was a friend of Wong’s relative who lived in Hong Kong. Since the friend did not know Wong personally, she could not tell the police how to contact her. The conversation was subsequently relayed to Wong’s relative.

Third Harassment

Wong revealed that on March 16, 2021, she heard from a relative that a friend of the relative had been summoned to the police station and interrogated. This is the third time Wong has been harassed by mainland police. In 2017, officials pressured her relatives in China twice. They claimed they had seen her participate in a Falun Dafa parade in Hong Kong. Subsequently they gathered information about her and told relatives to tell her “not to participate in parades.”

Wong suspects the reason officials have harassed her again may be because of a program she aired on March 12, which exposed the CCP’s crimes of organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners.

Wong played two tape recordings on the program, one of which was the testimony of a police officer who was present during an organ harvesting operation and the other which was a conversation between Bo Xilai and a Chinese diplomat in 2006 in Hambarg, Germany, in which Bo said Jiang Zemin gave orders for the removal of organs from living Falun Dafa practitioners.

The police asked about Wong and threatened the relative’s friend: “They instructed the friend to tell me not to do the program. They reminded the friend that Hong Kong now has the National Security Act. They pointed out that they could use it to arrest me and said, ‘Wong’s parents will lose their daughter and it won’t be good.’”

Upholding the Truth

Human rights and press freedom groups like the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters without Borders, and Freedom House have documented multiple attacks on journalists and news outlets in Hong Kong who report critically about the Chinese government in recent months.

Since the National Security Act was passed, several prominent figures in Hong Kong media have been arrested, including Next Digital Founder Jimmy Lai, D100 radio host Jess, and radio presenter Tam Tak-chi. The security act gives police the power to search any premise and seize and search electronic devices to conduct surveillance. The law is also vaguely worded, which allows the law to be interpreted in a myriad of ways.

Many are increasingly concerned about the safety of media personnel. Committee to Protect Journalist found community newspapers in Hong Kong have begun deleting archives of their content. Koo Tak Ming, a writer of 30 years for Apple Daily, also stopped writing his column out of fear reporting the facts of the spread of the virus and the flooding in Hunan would result in backlash.

Senior journalist Ching Cheong said, “In times like these, it is extremely important to have a voice that pursues the truth.” Some medias, such as Radio Television Hong Kong though have begun self-censoring under pressure, issuing guidelines to reporters to not write anything of differing opinion from the Chinese and Macau government.

Wong, however, emphasized that she will not back down since she has not done anything wrong by telling the truth. Instead, she chooses to keep her profile visible because she feels she has nothing to hide and believes it the best way to protect herself.

“Evil is most terrified of being exposed. If you keep quiet about challenges and retreat, it is even more dangerous. Therefore, I think I am doing the most righteous thing. I am not only letting everyone know how evil the CCP is, exposing it is also a way of protecting myself.”

Original Article:

https://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2021/3/25/191568.html