A Hong Kong web service supplier says it has blocked entry to pro-democracy web site compliance with a nationwide safety regulation imposed by Beijing on Hong Kong final June.
In a press release on Thursday, Hong Kong Broadband Community confirmed to The Impartial that it had disabled entry to HKChronicles, a web site that supported town’s pro-democracy motion and had beforehand launched the non-public data of police and pro-Beijing supporters throughout anti-government protests in 2019.
“Now we have disabled the entry to the web site in compliance with the requirement issued beneath the Nationwide Safety Legislation,” the corporate mentioned, asserting that the motion was taken on 13 January.
The choice would have been taken days after Naomi Chan, the chief editor of HKChronicles, had warned in a on-line put up final week that customers in Hong Kong had been reporting the location as inaccessible.
The chief editor accused telecom corporations, together with Hong Kong Broadband Community, of blocking the web site.
Different telecom giants, together with China Cellular Hong Kong and SmarTone haven’t mentioned whether or not they have additionally positioned a ban on the web site.
In her assertion final week, Ms Chan sought to “denounce” ISPs that cooperate with the Chinese language and Hong Kong authorities to “prohibit the residents’ proper and freedom to entry data”.
She additional warned Hong Kong residents to “make early preparations to counter future Web blockage at a bigger scale, and to face the darkness earlier than daybreak”, in response to AP.
The choice to dam the web site comes amid rising issues that Beijing is transferring away from its dedication to permit the previous British colony to keep up impartial civil rights and a separate political system.
In a tweet, Glacier Kwong, a digital rights activist based mostly in Germany, accused the Hong Kong authorities of “stifling Hong Kong folks’s freedom on the Web”.
“An open Web has at all times been the cornerstone of freedom in a spot. Disrupting Web freedom additionally undermines the stream of data, freedom of communication, and freedom of the press,” she mentioned.
The nationwide safety regulation imposed by Beijing final June was believed to be geared toward curbing dissent within the territory after months of anti-government protests.
This text has been up to date with a press release from the Hong Kong Broadband Community.
