(C) Common Dreams
This story was originally published by Common Dreams and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Hong Kong newspaper Sing Tao forced to register US arm as a foreign agent [1]
['Sarah Zheng']
Date: 2021-08-26 18:00:09+08:00
A Hong Kong newspaper has been forced to register its US subsidiaries as foreign agents, based on a Department of Justice assessment of its overseas ties.
Advertisement
The order means Sing Tao, which is viewed as a pro-Beijing outlet, is the first Hong Kong media outlet to register as a foreign agent in the US.
Filings to the Department of Justice this week declared that it was owned by the Hong Kong-listed Sing Tao News Corporation, and that its parent company’s stock was owned by individuals and entities considered to be “foreign principals” by the US government. The registration, stamped on Monday, was first reported by the US news site Axios.
In the filing, Robin Mui, chief executive of its New York branch, said the outlet is “editorially independent” from the Hong Kong-based corporation, which he said was “not owned by or affiliated with any foreign government or political party”.
The filing said Sing Tao US disagreed with the designation and considered itself to be operating similarly to other for-profit media in the country. It said the Department of Justice’s Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) unit had concluded that its operations constitute “political activity for purposes of the FARA”.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3146478/hong-kong-newspaper-sing-tao-forced-register-us-arm-foreign
Published and (C) by Common Dreams
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0..
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/commondreams/
