HONG KONG
Journalists at Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao went on an hour-long "pen strike" in protest at a decision to demote a story about the Tiananmen Square massacre, local media reported Wednesday.
The decision to downgrade the sensitive story raised concerns about Beijing’s influence on the territory’s media.
The main story in Monday's edition was originally supposed to be the first of a series of investigative stories on declassified Canadian government documents, the English-language Standard reported.
The diplomatic documents carried an account of a student who witnessed People’s Liberation Army soldiers opening fire on demonstrators in Beijing as well as an analysis of the crackdown.
No official casualty figures of the June 4, 1989 incident have ever been released but estimates put the number killed at up to 1,000. Amnesty International says thousands were detained, tortured, imprisoned or executed in the aftermath.
Around 100 Ming Pao staff, including reporters and editors, left their office at 6 p.m. (1200GMT) on Tuesday and laid their pens down outside the entrance of their office, the Standard said.
The journalists held up white boards with slogans criticizing editor-in-chief Chong Tien-siong.
Late Sunday night, Chong had replaced the front page story with one about Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, despite opposition from other editors.
In a statement released early Wednesday, Chong defended his right to make the change, adding that he did not make any changes to the original Tiananmen story and that it was published prominently elsewhere in the paper.
The Apply Daily newspaper quoted Sin Wan-kei, a staff member of Ming Pao, who said Chong should have respected collective decision-making at Ming Pao.
"What were the reasons behind his sudden change of mind late in the night?" Sin asked.
The controversy reflects concerns that freedom of the press in the former British colony is under threat.
In February last year, Ming Pao’s then editor-in-chief Kevin Lau was attacked with a meat cleaver.
