EJ Insight » Hong KongToday, 3:42 PM
A Commercial Radio reporter failed to gain entry to the Philippines to cover this week's APEC summit. Photos: HKEJ, Bloomberg
Commercial Radio Hong Kong deplored the refusal of Philippine immigration to allow one of its reporters entry to cover the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit this week in Manila, Ming Pao Daily reported.
Calling the decision “incomprehensible”, a spokesman for the radio station said the reporter arrived in Manila on Sunday at around noon but was denied entry.
Another reporter flew over on Monday morning and entered Manila successfully.
The first reporter returned to Hong Kong on Monday at noon, the spokesman said.
He said the reporter was denied entry because he was one of the Hong Kong reporters blacklisted by the Philippine government in 2013.
The country’s immigration bureau said in November last year that nine reporters from Hong Kong, whom it did not name, would be banned from covering this year’s APEC meeting because they tried to press President Benigno Aquino to answer questions in October 2013 when he attended the APEC summit in Indonesia.
They allegedly questioned Aquino aggressively about a hostage siege in Manila that left eight Hong Kong tourists dead in 2010.
However, the Consulate General of the Philippines in Hong Kong replied to an inquiry from Ming Pao on Nov 26 last year saying the entry ban on the nine had been lifted and they could enter the country as tourists.
The radio station has sought assistance from the Hong Kong government over the issue.
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