Next Media fined for indecent pics

Hong Kong co. guilty of publishing shots

By PATRICK FRATER

HONG KONG - Chinese-language publishing company Next Media was Monday ordered by a Hong Kong court to pay fines totaling HK$175,000 ($22,600) after being found guilty of seven cases of publishing indecent photographs. Among them were pics of the disgraced star Gilliam Chung Yan-tung.

Cases included the infamous 2006 incident in which Chung, one half of the sexy Twins pop double act, was illicitly snapped changing her clothes while backstage at a concert in Kuala Lumpur (Variety, Sept. 3, 2006.)

That provoked near record numbers of public complaints to Hong Kong's Television & Entertainment Licensing Authority and caused Jackie Chan and other celebs to petition government for tighter rules on paparazzi-style photography. Next Media's Easy Finder mag, which published the pics, was forced to close down though it has since reappeared as Face.

Chung's career has since taken a nosedive after she was one of several women caught in explicitly sexual photographs with Edison Chen that were published in print and on the Internet at the beginning of this year.