Transparency worries increase as HK pollster faces closure

Independent outfit suspends activities after CEO questioned by national security police

- Magdalene Fung

HONG KONG - The potential closure of a prominent Hong Kong polling institute has renewed concerns about the erosion of information transparency in the city under its national security law.

The Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute (Pori) announced on Feb 13 that it would "suspend all its self-funded research activities indefinitely, or even close down".

The independent organisation, which has been in operation since 1991, tracks public sentiment in Hong Kong on broad topics including economic satisfaction, social well-being and trust levels towards the city's politicians.

The announcement came a month after Pori's chief executive Robert Chung and other employees were questioned by Hong Kong's national security police, a unit in charge of safeguarding national security, in a probe into whether they or the institute had helped an absconder.

The news came the same week that British-born Hong Kong activist investor David Webb said he would shut down his popular database website as he battles cancer.

Mr Webb's free online database Webb-site.com, which has been in operation since 1998, tracks information in Hong Kong such as corporate filings. His research into corporate wrongdoing had previously triggered regulatory investigations.

Political commentators interviewed by The Straits Times expressed regret at the impending shutdown of both platforms, noting that they played an important role in promoting the open flow of information and raising the level of public discourse in Hong Kong.

"Pori's potential closure is a big setback to the growth of civil society, and a big loss to journalists and scholars who study the political and social developments of Hong Kong," Mr Chris Yeung, founder of independent opinion platform Voice of Hong Kong, told ST.