Hong Kong pollster’s operations will not be affected by HK$1m police bounty on ex-deputy, CEO says
Hong Kong Free Press
The future operation of the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute (PORI) “will not be affected” by a police bounty on its former deputy chief over national security allegations, its CEO has said.
Robert Chung, CEO of PORI, said on Friday that his independent polling institute was not approached by the authorities about the issuance of an arrest warrant against Chung Kim-wah, formerly deputy CEO of the organisation, earlier this week.
Police on Tuesday placed a HK$1 million bounty on Chung Kim-wah and five others, all currently residing overseas, accusing them of inciting secession and colluding with foreign forces under the Beijing-imposed national security law.
Robert Chung said during a press conference on Friday that PORI had not been in contact with Chung Kim-wah for “quite some time” since the latter left his role and the city in April 2022. The CEO added that he believed PORI had “nothing to do with” the allegations against Chung Kim-wah.
Asked if the police move would impact PORI, Robert Chung told HKFP: “I would say that we will not be affected at all.”
“It’s a… basket of six important factors which we have to take into consideration in reinventing ourselves,” the CEO said, referring to PORI’s adjustments over the past six months. The organisation has seen a decease of self-funded public opinion polls.
“Legal risk is definitely one of them, but it is not the most important factor,” he said, adding that the primary reason for the adjustment was to better utilise resources.
Last year, it vowed to scrap about a quarter of its usual survey questions and make private the results of some others, with those relating to the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown among the affected topics.
When Chung Kim-wah left the city, he cited fears of censorship and told Ming Pao that he had been invited by the police to an interview over a PORI poll on Russia’s war in Ukraine in March 2022.
Robert Chung said he believed there was not any legal action against Chung Kim-wah or PORI at that time: “The latest warrant issued by the police a few days ago was something new, based on probably some new evidence or some new rationale of prosecution, which I do not know,” he added.
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