Hong Kong:
Hong Kong police arrested the chief editor and 4 executives of pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily on Thursday, raiding its newsroom for a second time in the most recent blow to the outspoken tabloid.
The paper and its jailed owner Jimmy Lai have lengthy been a thorn in Beijing’s side with unapologetic assistance for the monetary hub’s pro-democracy movement and scathing criticism of China’s authoritarian leaders.
More than 500 officers have been involved in the dawn operation which police stated was sparked by articles Apple Daily had published “appealing for sanctions” against Hong Kong and China’s leaders.
The 5 executives have been arrested “for collusion with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security”.
“Those arrested are all directors of Apple Daily so they are very familiar with the company’s daily operations,” senior superintendent Steve Li told reporters. “They have overall responsibility for the content, style and principles of news reporting.”
Police stated HK$18 million (US$2.3m) in Apple Daily assets had also been frozen below the safety law, the very first time a seizure order has been made straight against a Hong Kong media business, rather than an person.
On Facebook, Apple Daily broadcast live footage and shared images of the raid. Officers could be seen cordoning off the creating, looking the newsroom and searching by means of journalists’ pc consoles.
“They arrived around 7 am this morning, our building is besieged,” an unnamed reporter stated in the broadcast.
“Police are restricting us from using quite a lot of our equipment. But we can still keep this live camera on and our website will keep updating,” the voice added.
Sweeping safety law
Most of the executives have been arrested at home but later taken to the newspaper.
Chief editor Ryan Law and CEO Cheung Kim-hung have been each led into the creating with their hands fastened behind their backs.
Stand News, a pro-democracy on line media outlet, published photographs displaying police had smashed down the home door of Chan Pui-man — Law’s deputy.
Hong Kong’s stock exchange stated trading in shares of Next Digital — the publisher of the newspaper — had been halted.
The safety law introduced last June is the speartip of a sweeping crackdown on Beijing’s critics in Hong Kong considering that 2019’s massive democracy protests.
It has criminalised considerably dissent, provided China jurisdiction more than some circumstances, permitted mainland safety agents to operate openly in Hong Kong and awarded authorities a suite of potent new investigation powers.
Those convicted of a national safety crime face up to life in prison and the majority are denied bail just after arrest.
Thursday’s raid was the second on Apple Daily in much less than a year.
The tabloid’s billionaire owner Lai, 73, was charged with collusion just after hundreds of officers searched the paper’s newsroom last August.
He is at the moment serving various jail sentences for attending different protests.
Apple Daily has staunchly backed Hong Kong’s pro-democracy bring about, like the massive and normally violent demonstrations that swept the city in 2019.
Beijing has made no secret of its need to see the paper’s voice tamed, with state media routinely describing Lai as a “traitor” and a “black hand” and senior communist party officials currently declaring him guilty.
Asset seizuresÂ
Last month, police utilized the national safety law to freeze Lai’s bank accounts and his majority shares in Next Digital.
It was the very first time Hong Kong authorities utilized the law to seize shares of a listed company’s majority shareholder.
Until Thursday’s raid, authorities had left the company’s assets alone. It is unclear no matter whether Apple Daily will now be capable to spend its employees.
More than one hundred men and women have been arrested below the safety law, several of them the city’s very best-identified democracy activists. Others have fled overseas.
China says the law was required to return stability to the international monetary hub.
Critics, like several Western nations, say it has been the final nail in the coffin for the “One Country, Two Systems” guarantee that Hong Kong could retain specific liberties just after its 1997 handover to China by the British.
A shadow of worry has hung more than the newsroom considering that Lai’s arrest.
Speaking with AFP last month, chief editor Law admitted that the paper was in “crisis” considering that the jailing of its owner but stated his reporters have been determined to press on with publishing.
At a current meeting, employees asked Law what they really should do if the police came back to arrest him.
“Broadcast it live,” he stated.
()