A lawyers group is demanding the government withdraw "political advertisements" seeking support for its electoral reforms, saying the ads break the law.
They claim three "announcements in the public interest", or APIs, recently aired on television and radio are actually political ads aimed at persuading Hongkongers to accept the government's restrictive framework for the 2017 chief executive election.
"Broadcasters are required, as a licensing condition, to air all APIs the government gives them. By dressing up political ads as APIs and requiring broadcasters to air them, officials are forcing the broadcasters to break the law," said Kevin Yam Kin-fung, convenor of the Progressive Lawyers Group.
Under the Broadcasting Ordinance, a licensed radio or television station must not air any ads of a political nature.
But under a code of practice on television advertising, government APIs are not considered to be advertisements.
However, Yam claimed that officials were exploiting this legal loophole so that political ads could be aired as APIs.
The new "2017: Seize the Opportunity" campaign is among the three identified as political advertising. The voice-over says: "In the past we could only watch on TV; we did not take part in making the decision … only 1,200 people voted. In 2017, five million people will take part through 'one person, one vote'."
In a 10-page paper on the subject, the lawyers argue that the ad was designed to win public support for the government's reform proposal - "a political matter" - and it does not suggest the possibility of any alternatives.
It is not the first time the government has been accused of trying to pass off political ads as APIs. It was criticised for doing the same thing in 2010 - using television announcements to promote its political reform framework back then.
That year, the Communications Authority fined Commercial Radio for airing an ad produced by politicians to urge people to join a democracy march. The authority said the radio ad was of a political nature and "would reasonably and likely be understood as a call for a change to the existing electoral system".
A government spokesman said the announcements were meant to "promote the policy objective" to implement universal suffrage for 2017, which was its "constitutional responsibility".