Press Release
25 July 2024
True Report issued three press releases in a row last month, revealing that the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA) was suspected of “election rigging” and obstructed veteran journalist and editor-in-chief Sherry Lee from running for the chairmanship of the HKJA in the election of 2024-25 Executive Committee. Lee encountered many “man-made” difficulties and obstacles in the process of qualifying as a member and obtaining nomination. Ultimately, the HKJA unilaterally claimed that Lee’s nominator had withdrawn their nomination and revoked her right to participate in the election. Ronson Chan Ron-sing, the previous chairman of the HKJA, informed the media that Sherry Lee could complain to its “Election Committee” which he claimed was “independent of the Executive Committee of the HKJA”. Lee then sent three separate emails to the HKJA on June 7, 9 and 10 to make a series of complaints regarding the matter.
The HKJA finally emailed Sherry Lee the findings of the “Election Committee” (see attachment) on June 30 and published it onto the HKJA’s Facebook page. In the investigation results, the HKJA completely failed to respond to the various questions raised by the press releases in the newspaper True Report and Sherry Lee’s complaint letter. It not only avoided addressing the main accusations, but further deflected the focus through misleading people by providing their insignificant explanations. To restore the truth, we conducted an investigation, and we are now publishing a four-part series of press releases to expose the inaccuracy and unfairness surrounding HKJA’s investigative report that conceals the HKJA’s “election rigging” scandal.
This is the second episode.
In the first episode, we revealed that members of the HKJA’s “Election Committee” who were responsible for conducting the so-called independent investigation turned out to be friends with the then chairman Ronson Chan Ron-sing. One of the members, Ken Lui Tze-lok, co-founder of online media “The Collective”, was even believed to be Chan’s close friend. It reflects that the investigation used the approach of “Friends Investigate Friends”, which seriously lacked independence and impartiality, raising suspicion that the purpose behind it was to conceal the HKJA’s “election rigging” scandal. In this episode, we will expose the various suspicions and inaccurate content of the Election Committee’s investigation report point by point, and uncover how the investigation concealed the truth!
The HKJA’s Investigation results avoid questions, divert attention, distort facts, and even falsify
In the open reply, the Election Committee did not respond to most of the questions raised by Sherry Lee in the complaint emails. It only used a “rough explanation” of less than three pages as the investigation results. There is no explanation regarding how they conducted the investigation, whether the persons involved in the complaints were interviewed, how evidence was collected, and how the final judgment was made. This reflected the extremely rough and careless nature of the investigation. But this is not the core issue. The core issue is that the results of the investigation avoid major questions, are full of loopholes, divert attention, distort facts, and even contain false information! This raises reasonable suspicions that the HKJA has not conducted an investigation at all, and the supposed “investigation results” are just a “script” that seeks an explanation to the public, therefore it is highly suspected for concealing the “election rigging” scandal.
One recurring characteristic of the Election Committee’s reply to Sherry Lee was that it pretended to pay deliberate attention to details and pretended to be fair. There are many examples of these throughout their reply. For example, in the first sentence of their response, “The Election Committee of the HKJA (hereinafter referred to as the “Committee”) received complaints from Sherry Lee (hereinafter referred to as the “complainant”) against the 2024/25 the HKJA’s Executive Committee Election” from the office on June 7, June 9 and June 10, 2024 respectively.” It also classified Lee’s different categories including “complaints about the membership application”, “complaints about the qualifications to stand for election”, “complaints related to anonymous persons”, and “complaints about the HKJA chairman’s interview with Radio Free Asia”, all for the purpose of crafting the impression that they respond comprehensively and are impartial, but the reality is the opposite.
The Election Committee’s reply stated that “the complainant mentioned disputes in relation with such anonymous persons “Miss E”, “Mr. S”, “Ms. M”, it is impossible for this committee to investigate without real information, and since the complaints involve membership issues, it is outside the scope of this committee.”
The above reply directly exposed the Election Committee’s tactics of avoiding the issues throughout the investigation. First, they pointed out that Lee’s complaint involved anonymous persons and therefore could not be verified, thereby easily avoiding Lee’s accusations. Second, the anonymous persons mentioned by Sherry Lee are related to the suspicion surrounding HKJA blocking Lee’s membership and nomination, rather than membership issues. The HKJA’s reply deliberately blurred the issues, and used the idea that it was not within the scope of the committee to deal with, allowing it to avoid responding.
Having considered that the people involved are in the same industry, True Report decided not to name them but to refer to them anonymously as “Miss E” and “Mr. S” in the press releases. We used “Miss M” to protect Sherry Lee’s friend. Lee attached our media’s press releases in lodging her complaint to the HKJA, and used the same anonymous names in the questions raised in the complaint. In its reply, the HKJA said that anonymity prevented them from “conducting verification without real information.” Evidently, this was an excuse. Since each separate incident of obstruction of candidacy only involved one person, the HKJA knew well who Sherry Lee was talking about, and cannot deny the exact accusation raised by Lee because it was well-founded and logical. They can only point out that the complaint involves anonymous persons and cannot be investigated. Another motive of the HKJA was to cast doubts on the credibility of Lee’s accusations by pointing out Lee’s use of anonymous persons being somewhat invalid.
In order to confirm that “Miss E” and “Mr. S” who are suspected of cooperating with the HKJA to block Lee’s candidacy are real individuals, and to prevent the HKJA from using anonymity of the individuals as an excuse not to respond to the accusations, we decided to name them. In our press release “The HKJA’s “Friends Investigate Friends” Investigation Part 1”, we disclosed the name of Mr. S, who is suspected of cooperating with the HKJA in not seconding Sherry Lee, so as to disable her from running for office. He is Stanley Leung, whose Chinese name is 梁錦雄. He was previously the Executive Editor-in-Chief of Metropolis Daily《都市日報》, and was once an executive member of the HKJA, and a member of the Newspaper Society of Hong Kong.
In this episode, we will reveal the name of Miss E. Miss E. is Emily Tsang, a News Editor of the South China Morning Post, whose Chinese name is 曾愛盈. Tsang was a member of the Executive Committee of the HKJA in 2021/2022 when Chan Ron-sing was the chairperson at that time, with the current chairperson Selina Cheng on the same Executive Committee（See Picture below). In the second episode of our press release issued in June, we have posted the phone messages between Tsang and Sherry Lee, which displays Tsang’s avoidance of Lee’s questions and lack of confirmation regarding whether her membership has expired. This makes people suspect that Tsang’s membership has not expired at all, and she was just cooperating with the HKJA’s actions and plan.
We reiterate that everyone has the right not to recommend people they disagree with to join a group, or not to nominate or second them to run for election. This is their right, and their decision is respected. We are now disclosing the names of the people involved, which as a disclaimer is not to put them on trial for not supporting Sherry Lee’s candidacy. Instead this disclosure is only after uncovering that some people were suspected of cooperating with HKJA that caused Lee to face many “man-made” difficulties and deliberate blockages in the process of obtaining membership and nomination, thereby hindering her candidacy.
If it is confirmed to be true, this would be referred to as an “election rigging” operation, affecting social fairness and justice. For the sake of public interest and justice, this newspaper has the responsibility to disclose the course of the incidents and the individuals involved, display all the known information, set the record straight, and allow the public to make a fair judgment based on their logic.
Notifying the expiration of referee’s membership on the day of the deadline, causing Lee to be unable to attain membership to stand for election
The HKJA pointed out that “the complainant received a call from the HKJA office on May 22 informing her that her referee’s membership had expired and she needed to submit a new referee’s information as soon as possible. However, that day was the deadline for new members to join the membership and participate in the election. The complainant was worried that it would affect her candidacy, so she inquired with the HKJA office staff and received verbal confirmation by the staff that if she submitted a new referee on the same day, it would not affect her candidacy. The complainant followed up with submission of the new referee’s information on the same day, and she later also received annual general meeting and executive committee election notification letters mailed to members from the Executive Committee. Therefore, this committee believes that the complainant’s complaints about being deprived of the right to stand in elections and being obstructed from participating in elections are unfounded, which is inconsistent with how HKJA staff advised the complainant to seek a replacement referee to join the election.”
Let us first briefly introduce the background of the incident in which Sherry Lee was “barred from gaining membership. On May 16, Lee contacted multiple friends in the media industry to seek for an HKJA member to refer Lee to join the association. On the same day, she received a reply from a former colleague of the South China Morning Post, referring a female reporter at the Post to help Lee join as an HKJA member. Lee then contacted the female reporter, whom we referred to as Miss E in our previous press releases. Tsang immediately agreed to be her referee for membership and provided her HKJA membership card number to Lee for membership registration.（See Picture below)
On the same day, Lee applied to become a member on the HKJA website. On May 17, the HKJA called to inform Sherry Lee that her membership application was approved and a membership card was issued to her on the same day. We believe that because the HKJA senior management was unaware that Lee planned to run for chairperson at the time, they thought it was just an ordinary reporter who wanted to join the association, so they approved her membership application. May 22 was the deadline to become a member for eligibility to stand for election. At about 10 a.m. on that day, Lee suddenly received a call from Ms. Wong, an HKJA staff member, saying that the membership of Lee’s referee, Emily Tsang, had expired for more than a year. She claimed that the staff member who processed Lee’s membership application approved the HKJA membership to Lee without verifying the referee’s membership. Wong said that Sherry Lee’s membership became invalid and asked her to provide another member as the referee for Lee to become a member.
According to what Chan Ron-sing informed the media, the HKJA has about 300 members. It is not possible for a staff member to remember who has a valid membership by memory. Understandably all member information should be recorded in the computer system, and the HKJA must have checked/reviewed whether the membership of the referee is valid through the computer before approving Lee’s membership. On May 17, they approved Sherry Lee’s membership application, which directly reflected that referee Tsang’s membership was valid as recorded in the computer system, and it is impossible that it coincidentally expired after the approval!
If on the morning of May 22, Lee hadn’t happened to contact another member of the HKJA, Filipino veteran journalist Mary Ann Benitez (Lee’s ex-colleague at The Standard), who was willing to be Lee’s referee for joining the association, given the significant drop of members in recent years, it would have been extremely difficult to find another member to recommend her to join the association again. Furthermore, Lee’s journalist friends are also no longer members of the HKJA. Therefore, the HKJA notified her that her membership qualification was invalid on May 22 – the deadline for new members to join the membership to stand for election – with the intention of squashing Lee’s membership qualification and preventing her from having the opportunity to run for the election.
The Election Committee stated that “the staff tried to let the complainant find a substitute referee to run for the election”. It was intended to give the false impression that the HKJA was very concerned about Lee being able to become a member and be a candidate to run for the election. As early as June, in our press release that exposed the “election rigging” incident, we pointed out that during the phone call on May 22, HKJA staff member Ms Wong oddly sounded “very concerned” about Lee. She told Lee that as soon as she had discovered that Emily Tsang’s membership had expired, she immediately notified her, claiming that she was afraid that Lee’s eligibility to run for the election was affected. But why the coincidence that they only discovered this on the 22nd, and not before that, for Lee could have had time to find another referee?
In fact, the HKJA’s timing is “perfectly” arranged. If they notify Lee after the 22nd, it would be equivalent to unfair disqualification of her eligibility to participate in the election. If that was the case, their approach would certainly be heavily criticized, but if they notify her on the day of the deadline to join the association and participate in the election, they could make it “look” seemingly fair, which is the strategic route the HKJA opted for. But in reality, this is equivalent to depriving Lee of the opportunity to stand for election. It is because she received the notice at 10 a.m. on May 22, Lee had less than eight hours to find another referee to allow her to join the association. It was no longer possible for Lee to run in the election. The reason for how Lee succeeded in joining the association and running for election was because she was able to contact her old colleague Benitez and receive her referral to join the association and run for election, rather than the useless and redundant “help” from HKJA’s staff.
The staff pretended to be “concerned” and were “worried” that Sherry Lee’s inability to join the association would affect her candidacy. It was just a technique that made it difficult to detect the calculated motives behind HKJA’s plan. It is believed that the staff member, Ms. Wong is just another puppet, and it was the person behind the scenes who was in control and asked her to say this to prevent the HKJA from being questioned about its motives. The cunning nature of this entire act is beyond what people can see! “I already noticed that things were unusual, but I didn’t expose them, to avoid anyone from further preventing me from running for election!” Sherry Lee said.
The HKJA was bold enough to use the method of invalidating membership to prevent Sherry Lee from joining the association and running for election through its reliance on their key figure, Emily Tsang. Regarding Tsang’s role in the incident, please read the second episode of our press release, titled “HKJA senior executives allegedly involved in election rigging 2 – obstructing Sherry Lee from joining the association and running for election!”. The article describes how our editor-in-chief Sherry Lee used her investigative skills to the fullest. She inquired with Emily Tsang through phone messages whether Tsang’s membership had really expired, but the other party neither admitted nor denied it.（Their messages are shown below) With the expiration date being a fact, why couldn’t Tsang admit and clear herself from suspicion with a direct reply to the simple yes or no question? The only possible explanation is that her membership has in fact not expired, but someone in the HKJA had fabricated lies to prevent Sherry Lee from joining the association and running for election. Tsang’s lack of response raises highly reasonable suspicions that she cooperated with the HKJA to prevent Sherry Lee from joining the association and running for election.
HKJA’s failure to provide written confirmation of nomination withdrawal; Focusing on a “one-minute difference in arrival time” to divert attention from the real problem
The Election Committee replied “As for the notification issue involved in the withdrawal of nomination by the nominator, this committee believes that any withdrawal of a candidate’s nomination is a matter between the nominator and the nominee, and the nominator should notify the nominee on their own. The office does not have the authority to disclose any person’s nomination decision before receiving the election form. However, when the office subsequently discovered that there were questions about the information on the election form (it should be nomination form), it had fulfilled its responsibility to clarify the facts with the relevant parties. The Committee must point out that candidates are responsible for ensuring that the information submitted is accurate and the nomination is valid before submitting the application form.”
The nominee referred to by the HKJA was Mary Ann Benitez. Lee met her at the IFC in Central on May 22. On that day, Benitez signed two nomination forms for Lee’s candidacy as chairperson（See picture below). Benitez also contacted Stanley Leung, a retired member of the HKJA, and got his promise to be the seconder between her and Lee. This move reflects that Benitez hoped that Sherry Lee would be elected. The nomination form submitted by Sherry Lee to the HKJA was accurate and the nomination was valid, opposite of what the HKJA attempted to imply about the information.
The HKJA claimed on its Facebook page on May 31 that it had discovered that among the two nominations for a candidate running for chairperson, one nominee had earlier stated to withdraw the nomination. It said that morning, they checked with the member and confirmed the member’s intention to withdraw the nomination, and they came to the conclusion that the nomination would be considered invalid. Chan Ron-sing, the then chairman of the HKJA, told the media on June 1 that one of Sherry Lee’s nominees withdrew her nomination, thus she was unable to run for election due to insufficient nominations. However, from May 22 to 31, Benitez has never taken initiative to inform Lee of her decision to withdraw her nomination.
The HKJA’s unilateral cancellation of Lee’s nomination without providing Lee with Benitez’s written confirmation of nomination cancellation lacks legal basis. If the HKJA had already been informed by the nominator to withdraw the nomination, but failed to inform Sherry Lee immediately and only informed her of the withdrawal on the day of the nomination deadline, it is highly suspicious that the purpose was to deprive Lee of the sufficient time to find another nominee, thus removing her the right to run in the election.
The Election Committee now states that “the office does not have the authority to disclose anyone’s nomination decision before receiving the election form.” This explanation reflects the extremely flawed “plan” of the HKJA’s “Action to Obstruct Candidates”. Since the nomination form contains the nominator’s membership number and signature, the HKJA has no reason to check with the nominator whether to nominate the candidate after receiving the form. With this in mind, logically, Sherry Lee can stand for election with the completed nomination form. How would her disqualification be possible then? It could be done by claiming a nominator had earlier informed the HKJA of the withdrawal of their nomination. After receiving the nomination form, they then checked with the member who requested to withdraw the nomination to confirm his/her intention to withdraw, in order for the candidate’s nomination to be considered invalid. In this way, the HKJA removed Lee’s right to run.
The nominator Benitez once told Sherry Lee that she was familiar with a former chairman of the HKJA. We suspect that after someone in the HKJA learned that Benitez had become Lee’s referee, they believed that she would also nominate Lee, and hence have been suspected to have contacted Benitez to request her not to nominate Lee. However, Benitez allegedly chose not to notify Sherry Lee, and therefore Lee only learned that the nomination was withdrawn after she submitted the nomination, leaving her with no time to find another nominee. If the alleged incident described above is true, it is a highly immoral act. Furthermore, we believe that even if Sherry Lee had submitted her nomination early on, the HKJA would repeat the alleged act as described here, by only notifying her of the nomination cancellation on the deadline, saying that Benitez decided to withdraw the nomination, again leaving Lee without sufficient time to find another nominee, resulting in Lee being unable to run for election.
The Election Committee’s reply continued with, “The complainant claimed that the office did not notify her that the nomination on the election form was invalid and that she had to find a valid nominator within a time limit, but our committee found her complaint invalid. According to the information from the office, the complainant went to the office in person to submit the nomination form on the deadline for nomination (May 31) at around 9:15 a.m. (the complainant stated that she arrived at the office at 9:16 a.m.). After verifying the information, the office sent an email to the complainant’s two email addresses at 11:10 am on the same day.”
The HKJA deliberately pointed out in its reply that the time when Sherry Lee arrived at the HKJA office to submit her nomination was not 9:16 as she pointed out, but 9:15. The time difference of one minute is an error not worth mentioning as it is meaningless in their argument in the investigation. To be precise, Lee arrived at about 9:14. When she arrived, she found a notice on the wall outside the door saying that office staff were “out for work”. Lee found that her predictions that the HKJA would pretend there is no one in the office and to avoid accepting her nomination documents were correct, and she immediately took a photo of the notice with her mobile phone as proof（See picture below). The shooting time recorded on Lee’s mobile phone was 9:15, and the time when Lee rang the doorbell was either 9:15 or 9:16.
Whether Lee arrived at the office at 9:15 or 9:16 is meaningless, so why did the HKJA even bother to include this in their reply? This is because the relevant people involved in this matter have no argument to refute our various accusations, and they had no choice but to deliberately focus on the one-minute difference between 9:15 and 9:16 to divert attention and convince people to view HKJA as an organization that values accuracy and justice. It also intentionally attempts to suggest that Sherry Lee’s information is inaccurate and misleads the public into thinking that she is not trustworthy. The HKJA is expert at their job in avoiding and not responding to important matters, and opting to use their injudicious and childish efforts to present themselves as just, which reflects their incompetence. Whoever that is behind these lackluster, yet calculated approaches are ridiculous and a joke.
The crux of the question is why did the staff of the HKJA put up a “out for work” notice when they were clearly in the office? When Lee’s friend called the number on the notice, why didn’t they answer? Why did they only open the door when they saw a “new face”? (Lee asked her friend to stand in the center of the HKJA’s gate, while Lee stood in a position where the HKJA staff would not see her.) Sherry Lee attached our press releases in her complaint to the HKJA, while raising these important suspicions, but the HKJA’s “friend investigate friends” investigation report did not mention or explain it!
The HKJA lied saying the staff member opened the door after the doorbell rang, but the fact is: no one in the office answered the door; no one answered the phone call! They only opened the door when seeing an unfamiliar, new face!
In a question sent to the HKJA on June 10, Sherry Lee asked: “May 31 is the nomination deadline. On this important day, it is expected that people would arrive at the HKJA’s office in person to submit nomination forms. Yet, why did no one answer the door? Did you deliberately prevent me from submitting my nomination form?”
The Election Committee’s reply stated, “The complainant said that on the morning of the deadline for submission of election form, she went to the office to submit her election form, an “Out of Office” notice was posted outside the office door, but no one answered the door again. According to the office’s reply to this Committee, the staff opened the door about a minute after the doorbell rang, and received the nomination form submitted by the complainant. The staff also signed and stamped the form for confirmation, and it was not as the complainant alleged that “no one answered the door again.”
The 3rd episode of the press release we released in June has clearly recorded that “Sherry Lee arrived at the HKJA at 9:16, and when she rang the doorbell, no one answered the door!” As soon as Lee arrived, she immediately rang the doorbell, but the HKJA did not open the door. Lee’s friend had proven this. Now the HKJA responded with “the staff opened the door about a minute after the doorbell rang” instead of “no one answered the door”. This is a lie! After Lee rang the doorbell and no one opened the door, she asked her friend to use her mobile phone to call the number on the notice. After ringing for a long time, no one answered. Afterwards when the staff saw Lee’s friend who was an “unfamiliar face”, she opened the door not completely but with a small gap to speak with Lee. （See picture below）
In fact, no one from the HKJA has answered the phone since May 23. No matter how many times Lee and several friends called the office, no one answered. We believe that it was the HKJA’s intention to give the false impression that no one was working in the office recently. This means that even if Lee received enough nominations and submitted the nomination form to the HKJA in person, the association can claim that the office was not open and pretend that Lee’s nomination form had not been received. On May 31, Lee arrived at the HKJA at 9:16 and rang the doorbell, but no one answered!
She saw a notice saying “I’m out for work. If you need anything, please call 2591 0692.” Knowing that something was wrong, she immediately stood on the other side of the door and told her friend to stand in front of the door, knowing that the HKJA staff would open the door if they found a face unfamiliar with them. If the HKJA looked through the peephole in the door without seeing Lee, they may have opened the door! She asked her friend to call the number on the notice, but no one answered the call. At this same critical moment, someone finally opened the door! A female staff member only half-opened the door of the HKJA, leaned out the upper half of her body, and asked “what was going on”. At this moment, Lee rushed forward and told the staff that she wanted to submit a nomination form. The staff did not invite Lee to enter the office and only allowed her to stand at the door. She stood in the gap and talked to Lee…Lee asked the staff to stamp, but she declared that the HKJA did not have a stamp. But as Lee insisted, the staff then had no choice of refusing this basic request and then stamped and signed Lee’s nomination forms.
However, the Election Committee’s investigation results did not mention or respond at all to the above-mentioned situation surrounding the HKJA’s staff refusal to open the door. They also tried to use “linguistic tricks” to misguide people, falsely claiming that their staff were very willing to open the door and stamp the nomination form as evidence of receival. But they did not explain at all despite staff being present in the office, why they put up the “out of work” notice and additionally not answer the phone call?
Let’s think about it logically. It turns out that there were people present in the office, so why did they put an “out of work” notice outside the door? The reason could be very simple. They have no intention of opening the door at all. Their purpose is to make Sherry Lee unable to submit the nomination, thus she cannot run for election! This arrangement pointedly captures how the HKJA should be highly suspected of hindering Lee’s candidacy. The HKJA staff was unwilling to stamp the document to prove that they had accepted the nomination, and the staff was only willing to stamp after Lee’s repeated request in order to push them. The reality was completely different to the election committee’s reply about how their staff opened the door in one minute, accepted the nomination, and stamped the form as confirmation…..The explanation given by the HKJA is a lie!
We speculate that since the HKJA has made a “plan” not to accept nominations, how and why would they expose themselves anyways? Therefore, the association selectively opts not to respond to accusations raised at all, and can only come up with the above lies to justify its explanation, but their explanations are filled with loopholes!
Not calling or WhatsApping Lee to notify her of the nomination withdrawal, preventing Lee from submitting a replacement nomination to run for election
The Election Committee’s reply stated that they had sent emails to the complainant’s two email addresses at 11:10 a.m. on the closing day of nominations (May 31), “notifying the complainant that a nominee has withdrawn nomination and that they need to submit nomination from another nominee before the deadline to be eligible to run for election,” and they believe that the message has been sent.
The purpose of that paragraph by the HKJA is to present themselves as responsible and opposite from their ill-intended nature, but why did they only notify Sherry Lee that her nomination was invalid on May 31, the deadline for nomination? As stated above, their purpose was to deprive Lee of having enough time to find another nominee to run for election.
The HKJA is a professional organization and has the responsibility to inform the candidate of the invalidation of the nomination after receiving the notice of nomination withdrawal beforehand. The HKJA has Lee’s mobile phone and her WhatsApp, and they have contacted her through this way. But that day, they did not call to notify Lee, nor were there any messages sent to her via WhatsApp. The only reason for the lackluster efforts to notify Lee through other methods was that they wanted to kill time and did not want Lee to receive the notice for her to find another nominee to run for office in time! In the HKJA’s report, they did not mention their failure to notify Lee, allegedly concealing their motive of preventing Lee to find another nominee in time.
Assuming that Mary Ann Benitez canceled her nomination, why? The reason for the mystery is revealed!
The Election Committee stated that “candidates are responsible for ensuring that the information submitted is accurate and that the nomination is valid before submitting the election form.”
From May 22 to 31, the deadline for nomination submission, Mary Ann Benitez, Lee’s nominee, did not take the initiative to inform Lee about withdrawing her nomination. On May 24, Benitez even sent a message to Lee（See picture below）, reminding her to run for election, saying “Just file your candidacy as soon as you have a seconder.”, she did not mention anything about withdrawing her nomination to Lee. Now assuming that Benitez canceled the nomination, what had happened that made Benitez change her mind and do this? This had been a long-standing question, and the answer was finally revealed by someone on June 29.
Our next episode of this press release series will reveal it all!
We reiterate that in reporting the HKJA’s alleged election rigging incident, no matter how strong the evidence is, the benefit of doubt should go to the defendants. Our newspaper does not rule out the possibility that in the series of press releases involving the “HKJA election rigging” scandal, our analysis of the different suspected people could be not comprehensive enough or could have errors. If wrong, we urge that the relevant people come forward to our media to provide evidence to confirm or correct information. Once verified, we will publish any updated clarifications publicly.
True Report
Encl: HKJA’s Election Committee’s reply to Sherry Lee’s complaints in relation to election (Chinese only):
Below is the link to a series of press releases published by True Report exposing HKJA’s alleged election rigging incident:
https://truereport.hk/tag/%e8%a8%98%e5%8d%94
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