HKU POP SITE releases the latest results of four subjective freedom indicatorsBack

The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong today releases on schedule via the "HKU POP SITE" (http://hkupop.pori.hk) the latest figures of the four subjective indicators on Hong Kong's freedom of "speech", "press", "publication", and "procession and demonstration". POP's normal practice is to release the results of our regular surveys every Tuesday at 2 pm via our POP Site, except during public holidays, each time with a forecast of the items to be released in the forthcoming week. We will review and adjust this operation regularly.

According to our schedule, the date and time of our next release will be August 13, 2002, Tuesday, at 2 pm, the latest ratings of CE Tung Chee-hwa and Principal Officials under the accountability system will be released.

According to the latest (July 10-15) findings released today, of the four subjective indicators on Hong Kong's freedom of "speech", "press", "publication", and "procession and demonstration", publication freedom got the highest score of 7.5 marks on a scale of 0-10. Speech and press freedoms both got 7.4 marks while the freedom of procession and demonstration scored 6.8 marks. Compared with the results registered in mid-April, the indicator for "procession and demonstration" has dropped by 0.3 mark, "speech" and "press" both dropped by more than 0.1 mark, while "publication" has no significant change.

The new survey reported in the POP Site today is a random telephone survey conducted by interviewers, targeting at Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong of age 18 or above. The sample size of the survey is over 1,000 respondents. At 95% confidence level, the sampling error of the four freedom indicators is less than plus/minus 0.12 marks. That means if we were to repeat a certain survey 100 times, using the same questions each time but with different random samples, we would expect 95 times getting a figure within the error margins specified. Shall anyone have any question regarding the research design of the surveys published in the POP Site, members of the POP Team will be happy to answer them, but we will not comment on the findings at this stage. Such an arrangement would be reviewed when more resources are available. Please note that Dr CHUNG Ting-yiu Robert, Director of Public Opinion Programme, is solely responsible for the work published in the POP Site, which does not represent the stand of the University of Hong Kong.