Beleaguered actor-singer Edison Chen Koon-hei returned to Hong Kong yesterday and apologised unreservedly for his involvement in the nude pictures controversy, saying he would quit the local entertainment scene indefinitely.

He admitted for the first time he had taken pictures of female celebrities engaging in sex acts with him. His lawyers issued a statement warning that further publication of the images would be a breach of copyright, a move that could foreshadow legal  action.

It is interesting to see how legal action against proprietary images is being used, since they were "stolen" and published without consent, does this mean we will be seeing multi million dollar lawsuits headed towards media outlets that published these photos?

"I would like to say sorry to all the people of Hong Kong. I give my apologies sincerely to you all unreservedly and with my heart," the Canadian-born Chen, 27, told a packed press conference at the Hong Kong International Trade and Exhibition Centre in Kowloon Bay. "I hope you all will accept my apology. Give me a chance."

He added: "I admit that most of the photos being circulated on the internet were taken by me. But these photos were very private, and have not been shown to people and were never intended to be shown to anyone. These photos were stolen from me illegally and distributed without my consent."

Chen said he would leave the local entertainment industry after fulfilling current commitments. His  lawyers released a statement saying Chen was the owner of the photographs and images "featuring himself and his lady friends in intimate circumstances", in an attempt to stop the pictures being circulated on the internet or published in the press.

The statement said that downloading the photographs was an act of copyright infringement and the  reproduction and dissemination of the photographs to the public was an "even more serious act of copyright infringement".

The photographs, featuring Chen and seven female celebrities including Gillian Chung Yan-tung of girl duo Twins, actress Cecilia Cheung Pak-chi and his current girlfriend Vincy Yeung Wing-ching, niece of Emperor Group tycoon Albert Yeung Sau-shing, have been circulated globally since the scandal broke nearly four weeks ago.

During his seven-minute speech, Chen repeatedly apologised to the  female stars who had been  embroiled in the scandal.

"I would like to apologise to all the ladies and to all their families for any harm or hurt that they have been  feeling. I’m sorry," he said calmly. He added: "I know young people in Hong Kong look up to many figures in our society. And in this regard, I failed as a role model. I will wholeheartedly fulfil all the commitments that I have to date but after that I have decided to step away from the Hong Kong entertainment industry."

Albert Yeung said last night Chen had spoken well and was "very sincere". "I think we should give him a chance." On Chen’s decision to quit local showbusiness he said: "It’s a pity, but this is his personal decision."

Gary Chan Chi-kwong, director of East Asia Music, said the company supported Chen’s decision.

Defending his decision to disappear after the scandal broke, Chen said: "I have never escaped from my responsibility … I have been assisting the police since the first day the photos were published, and I will continue to assist them."

Chen said he would dedicate his time to charity in the next few months and hoped his predicament would be a lesson for the wider  community.

After the press conference, police went to Chen’s home in Magazine Gap Road to continue their investigation and search for evidence.

"We have collected evidence including some computer-related items and a computer," said Chief Inspector Kenny Wong Tak-cheung from the Commercial Crime Bureau.

A good article on globalvoices today. The most striking comment being that even possession of the photos were illegal by a Police commissioner who clearly did not know better. A major protest was out on the streets to protest the obscene photo case and relevant arrest.

There is now even a facebook group calling for Edison Chen’s arrest.

Depending on the source, anywhere from 250-500 people were marching on the street, a sample from hkdigit.

More than 250 Hong Kong people included members of the League of Social Democrats(Organizers Article23.net said more than 500 people attended) marched from Victoria Park to the Wan Chai Police headquarters to protest against the police’s handling of the obscene photo case involving local pop and film stars including Edison Chen Kwoon-hei(陳冠希), Gillian Chung Yan-tung (鍾欣桐), Bobo Chan Man-woon (陳文媛) and Cecilia Cheung Pak-zhi (張栢芝), implicated Edison’s current girlfriend Vincy Yeung (楊永晴). They accused the police of selective prosecution.

For more information on this there is even a Wikipedia entry.

There are several events of hypocrisy, starting from the lie that the pictures were fabricated, to the innocent and quick arrests of people and the police threatening to jail people simply for possession. I guess being a celebrity gives you some extra benefits in Hong Kong society?

 There are many ways to tell you that your content has been Firewalled in China. No surprise there, this is one of the more cute and funnier ones, english grammar included! Normally censorship police don’t look so cute, I’m guessing they want to give themselves a nicer image? Too funny.

It is astounding that a city as wealthy as Hong Kong has large percentage of people so poor, they cannot even afford the electricity or the internet charges, let alone a computer.

Needy families are being further impoverished by the fees they have to pay for computers their children use at home, say welfare workers. They want the government to pay for a "one family, one computer" scheme, because computers are now a daily necessity and indispensable learning tools.

The call followed a survey released yesterday that found 14.9 per cent of poor families could not afford a computer at home.

For those who do have computers, 73.6 per cent found the internet fees and software too expensive.
Raising this money lowered their quality of life. Among common ways to cut spending was "cutting electricity bill by washing clothes by hand", "travelling by foot whenever possible" and "cutting expenditure on meals by buying less food".

The survey, conducted in June and July by a coalition of 18 social welfare concern groups, interviewed 201 families in old districts.

A spokesman for the coalition said computers had become an important learning tool and most schoolwork required their use.

"It could affect the academic performance of a child if he does not have access to a computer at home," the spokesman said.

Free computers are available in some facilities like public libraries, but demand is great and users often face a lengthy wait.

The coalition said the government should help needy families.

A mother living on public assistance in Sham Shui Po said she could not afford to buy a computer for her daughter.

"But she needs a computer to do homework. So, when it is needed I have to call around to ask relatives to let her use their home computer for a few hours," the mother said.

On one occasion she had to take her daughter to Tuen Mun to use a computer at her sister’s home.

In a previous post I made I was struck by an incredibly image of how pollution is affecting China in a massive way, now a news article says that Pollution and environmental damage was costing up to 10 per cent of gross domestic product and resulted in zero or even negative growth in some regions, a member of the government’s taskforce on launching the Green GDP programme has said.

The mainland reported recently that GDP growth hit an 11-year high of 11.9 per cent year on year in the second quarter, taking first-half growth to 11.5 per cent. GDP growth rates reported by local governments have been even higher.

Commenting on the sizzling growth in the first half of this year, Lei Ming , of Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management, who helped prepare the mainland’s first Green GDP report last year, warned there would be an even greater cost if Beijing failed to implement new "green requirements".

"In some provinces where an energy-intensive and high pollution development model was pursued, the cost of treating the environmental pollution would reach as high as 10 per cent of their local GDP," yesterday’s Shanghai Securities News quoted Professor Lei as saying.

"If these costs are discounted, the actual GDP growth is probably zero or negative."

Last September, the central government released the first Green GDP report - the result of a two-year survey examining 42 industries across 10 provinces and cities in 2004 - which was compiled by a group of environmental and economic experts and launched by the mainland’s top environmental watchdog and the National Bureau of Statistics.

The report said pollution cost a "staggering" 511.8 billion yuan in economic losses in 2004, equivalent to 3.05 per cent of that year’s total economic output.

Professor Lei said the figure heavily underestimated the real cost of pollution, adding that the figure would have been much higher if resource depletion, ecological damage and health-care bills were factored in. Foreign experts said Beijing’s calculations took into account only the economic price of environmental pollution.

However, the government recently announced it would postpone the programme indefinitely, due to strong opposition from some central agencies and regional governments.

Wang Jinnan , the technical head of the Green GDP accounting project, said the report had been shelved because of infighting between local and central governments and between government agencies.

"The State Environmental Protection Administration (Sepa) and the National Bureau of Statistics are at loggerheads over the method in publicising the report and over what contents should be made public," said Professor Wang, from the Chinese Academy of Environmental Planning.

Professor Wang’s comments confirmed earlier rumours about bureaucratic discord over the issue between central agencies. Statistics bureau commissioner Xie Fuzhan told a press conference on July 12 that the government could not publicise the Green GDP statistics due to the lack of international precedent and controversy over the statistical method.

Professor Wang said some local governments had even sent letters to Sepa and the bureau asking them not to publish their reports. He said the 2005 report had been put on hold despite having been completed by the end of last year. "The unpublished report includes separate Green GDP reports on 31 provinces and the whole nation," he said.

Although no ruling was made on the case of the Bible being ruled as indecency, a picture hosted on Flickr and posted on a Hong Kong website that shows a pair of naked breasts. As I am in Hong Kong I can not see this photo, because it has been blocked by the authorities of Hong Kong (requesting Flickr to do so). I found another blog that has a "censored" version without the photo, see below, it looks like a very artistic impression. Why Flickr, a Yahoo service, would continue to allow censorship given its previous PR fiasco by assisting the Chinese government to send its users to Jail indicates to me that Yahoo has learned nothing from its experience in China. We don’t trust you Yahoo, I don’t use your service and while I have liked Flickr when it was independent, I no longer will use your services.

To quote boing boing that summarized it quite well:

Interlocals.net founder and inmedia.hk activist Oiwan Lam decided, as an act of electronic civil disobedience, to protest the Obscene Articles Tribunal of the Honk Kong Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority (TELA) and their classification of articles as obscene for publishing hyperlinks to erotic photography on flickr and other sites. Lam then wrote an essay criticizing the Authority and linking to a tasteful photography found by searching the keywork ‘nude’ on flickr. The result was a quick response from the TELA, and the classification of the article as a Class II indecent article by the Obscene Articles Tribunal. The maximum penalty is HK$400,000 and 12 months in jail.

Here reasons for doing so are explained in her own post here. What concerns me more however is that in the name of indecency Hong Kong gets to practice actual censorship. People will be reported for posting "indecent" material and will be blocked, fined, bullied and scared so that they cooperate with the ulterior motive - to be compliant, not just with the law, but with the facade of law so that we may pretend that Hong Kong is actually free and liberal. Hong Kong is quite free and liberal today, but keep this up and freedom and liberties will directly affect business, economy and quality of life. Someone needs to explain that to the authorities.

The headlines and covers of Apple Daily, Easyfinder, Next Media both online and offline are covered with women in far more suggestive (and derogatory) positions and gestures in far more public display than this image. If it’s about displaying the nipple, then request they be "marked" but don’t block an entire Flickr account or punish a user. Someone wants us to feel afraid of posting thoughts and opinions online in Hong Kong - phooey.