Hong Kong:
Hong Kong’s pro-democracy Apple Daily tabloid stated it was a “victim of tyranny” in a defiant final edition on Thursday soon after it was forced to close beneath a new national safety law, ending a 26-year run of taking on China’s authoritarian leaders.
The sudden death of the well-known newspaper is the most recent blow to Hong Kong’s freedoms, deepening unease more than whether or not the international finance centre can stay a media hub as China seeks to stamp out dissent.
Queues formed across Hong Kong on Thursday as residents raced to snap up one of the one million copies Apple Daily stated it planned to print. Many vendors sold out inside minutes and have been awaiting fresh deliveries.
The swansong front web page featured the paper’s personal journalists waving goodbye to crowds outdoors its headquarters.
“Apple Daily is dead,” deputy chief editor Chan Pui-man, who was arrested last week on a national safety charge, wrote in a farewell letter to readers.
“Press freedom became the victim of tyranny.”
In the working-class district of Mongkok, hundreds queued by means of the early hours of the morning to get their hands on the final edition, some chanting “Apple Daily we will meet again!”
“It’s very shocking,” a 30-year-old lady, who was in the queue and gave her very first name as Candy, told AFP.
“Within two weeks, authorities could use this national security law to dismantle a listed company.”
Apple Daily journalists hold freshly-printed copies of the newspaper’s last edition although acknowledging supporters gathered outdoors their workplace in Hong Kong early on June 24, 2021.
Asset freeze
Hong Kong’s most well-known tabloid had lengthy been a thorn in Beijing’s side, with unapologetic assistance for the city’s pro-democracy movement and caustic criticism of China’s authoritarian leaders.
Those exact same leaders utilized a new safety law to bring about its fast demise.
Owner Jimmy Lai, at present in jail for attending democracy protests, was amongst the very first to be charged beneath the law soon after its imposition last year.
But the final chapter was written more than the last week when authorities deployed the safety law to raid the newsroom, arrest senior executives and freeze its assets.
That last move crippled the paper’s capability to conduct enterprise or spend employees and the news group decided Thursday’s newspaper — a run of one million copies in a city of 7.5 million — would be its last.
Overnight it took down its web-site, Twitter and Facebook accounts.
Some 1,000 individuals, such as 700 journalists, are now out of work.
“Hong Kongers lost a media organisation that dared to speak up and insist on defending the truth,” eight nearby journalist associations stated in a joint statement, as they referred to as on colleagues to dress in black on Thursday.
Forbidden opinions
China imposed its safety law on Hong Kong last year soon after the city was convulsed by big and typically violent democracy protests in 2019.
The prosecution of Apple Daily was sparked by articles and columns that allegedly supported international sanctions against China, a view now deemed illegal.
Lai, chief editor Ryan Law and CEO Cheung Kim-hung have all been charged with colluding with foreign forces to undermine China’s national safety and remanded into custody.
On Wednesday, Yeung Ching-kee, one of the paper’s leading columnists, was arrested on the exact same charge.
The choice to freeze Apple Daily’s assets also laid bare the sweeping powers now at the disposal of authorities to pursue any business deemed to be a national safety threat.
Multiple international media corporations have regional headquarters in Hong Kong, attracted to the enterprise-friendly regulations and free of charge speech provisions written into the city’s mini-constitution.
But a lot of nearby and international outlets are questioning whether or not they have a future there.
First trial
Hong Kong has plunged down an annual press freedom ranking by Reporters Without Borders, from 18th location in 2002 to 80th this year. Mainland China languishes at 177th out of 180, above only Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea.
China and Hong Kong’s authorities have hailed the safety law for effectively restoring stability soon after the 2019 demonstrations and stated media outlets will have to not “subvert” the government.
Authorities initially stated the law would only target “a tiny minority”.
But it has radically transformed the political and legal landscape of a city that China promised would be in a position to retain crucial liberties and autonomy soon after its 1997 return by Britain.
On Wednesday, the very first trial beneath the new law got beneath way for a man accused of riding a motorbike into police officers.
His trial is not becoming heard by a jury, a main departure from Hong Kong’s frequent law traditions.
His case is uncommon mainly because he is the only Hong Konger so far charged beneath the safety law with an explicitly violent act.
More than 60 individuals have now been charged beneath the law, such as some of the city’s most effective-recognized democracy activists, but their offences are associated to political views or speech that authorities have declared illegal.
(This story has not been edited by TheSpuzz employees and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)