Journalist's ArmIs Severed p.17

By: Editorial Staff

HONG KONG JOURNALISTS and publishers have offered a record award of $519,000 for the capture of gangsters who sliced off the arm of a colleague.
The attack on Leung Tin-wai in his Hong Kong office was condemned by politicians and led to calls for protests for press freedom.
Senior journalists offered a $390,000 reward, and Leung's publishing company said it upped the sum to $519,000.
It was a record reward figure in Hong Kong and was four times the amount offered by the police for the territory's most wanted criminal, Yip Kai Foon, who was recently captured.
The bounty was offered by journalists who formed an anti-violence group to organize protests and put pressure on the authorities to catch Leung's maimers.
Two men walked into the office of 53-year-old Leung, one of Hong Kong's best-known journalists, and severed his left forearm with two knives.
Surgeons operated for more than 18 hours to reattach Leung's arm. He is in poor condition in the hospital.
The attack came two weeks before the launch of Leung's tabloid-style magazine, Surprise Weekly.
"The attack is a challenge to the freedom of the press in the territory and a challenge to police and the whole community," said Raymond Wong, a publisher and spokesman for the anti-violence group.
Chief inspector Chris Richards, who heads a unit combating crime by Hong Kong's triad gangster groups, has refused to speculate on a motive. But one police source told Reuters a personal grudge could be behind the attack.
Executives of Leung's Surprise Weekly pointed to possible motives by triads. Editor in chief Yau Chin-yuen said articles in pre-publication editions might have angered the triads.
Triads are Chinese gangsters or underworld figures active in gambling, prostitution and drug trafficking.
"Some articles are inside stories about organized groups," the South China Morning Post quoted Yau as saying.
Leung was a founding editor of Next Magazine, whose publisher, clothing king Jimmy Lai, has been subject to attacks attributed to triad gangs during the past two years.