On June 17, Hong Kong police arrested five officials of the pro-democracy Apple Daily, including its editor, in the second search in less than a year of the newspaper’s newsroom in the crosshairs. The Hong Kong Police National Security Department said in a statement that five directors of a company were arrested on suspicion of colluding with a foreign country or with outside elements to endanger security. They only clarified that there were four men and a woman between the ages of 47 and 63, without giving further details.
Apple Daily said five of its directors, including editor-in-chief Ryan Law, chief executive Cheung Kim-hung, chief operating officer Chow Tat-kuen, associate editor Chan Puiman and executive editor Cheung Chi-wai, had all been arrested during raids carried out in the morning.
The move is the latest blow to Apple Daily after authorities last month ordered the freezing of jailed tycoon Jimmy Lai’s shares in the newspaper’s publisher Next Digital. Police also froze HK$18m (US $2.3m) in assets of three companies, Apple Daily Limited, Apple Daily Printing Limited and AD Internet Limited. Parent company, Next Digital, announced the suspension of trading in its shares before markets opened on Thursday.
The police operation is a significant escalation of the government to tighten the freedom of the press.
Senior superintendent Steve Li Kwai-wah, the head of the police’s national security division, said there was “strong evidence that the questionable articles played a very crucial part in the conspiracy, which provided ammunition for foreign countries, institutions and organisations to impose sanctions”, adding that those arrested played “an important role” in their publication.
The articles reportedly date back to 2019. Authorities have made repeated assurances since the implementation of a controversial media law. Li said the police valued freedom of the press. “We are not targeting the media, but only an organisation that is allegedly violating article 29 of the national security law.”
In a press conference on Thursday afternoon, Lee issued a further warning to the city’s press to distance themselves from their Apple Daily colleagues. The owner of the paper, pro-democracy campaigner and tycoon Jimmy Lai, has been jail since late last year on charges relating to the 2019 protests and allegations of national security offences.
“This is the worst of times in Hong Kong,” said Apple Daily in an open letter to its readers. It said the city’s press freedom was “hanging by a thread”, but it vowed to stand tall and had “no regrets”. The staff union said it was “enraged” by the arrests and described the court decision to grant a warrant seizing journalistic materials as “regrettable”.
The National Security Law of Beijing, with the Hong Kong government’s blessing, in June last year, and has since led to the arrests of more than 100 individuals, covering political events often held by political parties of all stripes. Politicians and activists were among those arrested, and most were denied bail.
The UK foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, on Thursday said the raid showed authorities were using the law to target dissent rather than tackle public security. “Freedom of the press is one of the rights China promised to protect in the joint declaration [between the UK and China on Hong Kong governance] and should be respected,” he said.
