Atin Ito First Filipino Community Newspaper in Ontario
A radio show promoting LGBTQ equality will end its 17-year run at Hong Kong’s public broadcaster on Sunday, with station management citing “changes in the program” as the reason for cancellation.
The axing of We Are Family comes after Beijing crushed Hong Kong’s democracy movement and imposed a sweeping national security law in 2020, which critics say has fractured civil society and silenced dissent.
Program co-host Brian Leung said he was “mentally prepared” for the show to be dropped at the government-funded Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK), but was not given a satisfactory explanation when meeting with station management earlier this month.
“For a traditional platform like RTHK, this program was more or less walking a tightrope,” Leung told AFP in an interview hours before the final show.
Featuring a mix of chitchat, news, and guest interviews, the show was a rare platform that advocated gay rights in the Chinese city and its 2006 debut broke the mold at the public broadcaster.
Partly inspired by the success of Oscar-winning film Brokeback Mountain, the show in its early days enjoyed editorial freedom “to an extent I found almost hard to believe,” Leung recalled.
The show, which aired for two hours every Sunday at midnight, made use of the broadcaster’s wide reach to present LGBTQ content as “something fun, light-hearted and interesting”, Leung said.
An episode about the high school bullying of LGBTQ teens won a Human Rights Press Award in 2010, while other episodes sparked discussion on topics such as drag culture and discrimination faced by transgender people.
“Being able to host this sort of program at a public broadcaster is itself a statement. If we can talk about homosexuality, sexual orientation on RTHK every week, that means… it’s not taboo,” Leung said.
RTHK told AFP that it reviews its programming strategies from time to time and does not comment on internal editorial matters.
Hong Kong has seen a steady rise in support for same-sex marriage, especially among younger residents. A survey this year found that 60 percent of Hong Kongers supported same-sex marriage, compared to just 38 percent a decade ago.
But the city’s Beijing-approved leadership has shown little appetite for passing laws that advance LGBTQ equality.
Most recently, Hong Kong’s top court is processing a challenge against the city’s restrictive marriage laws brought by activist Jimmy Sham, who is among a group of opposition figures on trial for subversion.
A radio show promoting LGBTQ equality will end its 17-year run at Hong Kong’s public broadcaster on Sunday, with station management citing “changes in the program” as the reason for cancellation.
The axing of We Are Family comes after Beijing crushed Hong Kong’s democracy movement and imposed a sweeping national security law in 2020, which critics say has fractured civil society and silenced dissent.
Program co-host Brian Leung said he was “mentally prepared” for the show to be dropped at the government-funded Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK), but was not given a satisfactory explanation when meeting with station management earlier this month.
“For a traditional platform like RTHK, this program was more or less walking a tightrope,” Leung told AFP in an interview hours before the final show.
Featuring a mix of chitchat, news, and guest interviews, the show was a rare platform that advocated gay rights in the Chinese city and its 2006 debut broke the mold at the public broadcaster.
Partly inspired by the success of Oscar-winning film Brokeback Mountain, the show in its early days enjoyed editorial freedom “to an extent I found almost hard to believe,” Leung recalled.
The show, which aired for two hours every Sunday at midnight, made use of the broadcaster’s wide reach to present LGBTQ content as “something fun, light-hearted and interesting”, Leung said.
An episode about the high school bullying of LGBTQ teens won a Human Rights Press Award in 2010, while other episodes sparked discussion on topics such as drag culture and discrimination faced by transgender people.
“Being able to host this sort of program at a public broadcaster is itself a statement. If we can talk about homosexuality, sexual orientation on RTHK every week, that means… it’s not taboo,” Leung said.
RTHK told AFP that it reviews its programming strategies from time to time and does not comment on internal editorial matters.
Hong Kong has seen a steady rise in support for same-sex marriage, especially among younger residents. A survey this year found that 60 percent of Hong Kongers supported same-sex marriage, compared to just 38 percent a decade ago.
But the city’s Beijing-approved leadership has shown little appetite for passing laws that advance LGBTQ equality.
Most recently, Hong Kong’s top court is processing a challenge against the city’s restrictive marriage laws brought by activist Jimmy Sham, who is among a group of opposition figures on trial for subversion.
— AFP
*****
Credit belongs to : www.manilastandard.net
