Hong Kong pro-democracy newspaper the Apple Daily yesterday increased its print run to 500,000 copies as residents showed support for beleaguered press freedom a day after police arrested five top editors and executives, and froze US$2.3 million of assets on national security charges.
The raid on the paper’s offices followed by the arrests on Thursday marked the first time the National Security Law, which Beijing imposed on Hong Kong last year, had been used against the media, one of the symbols of civil liberties in the territory that does not exist elsewhere in China.
Police said the editors were arrested on suspicion of foreign collusion to endanger national security, based on more than 30 articles that authorities said had called for international sanctions against China and Hong Kong.
Photo: EPA-EFE
With anti-government protests silenced, most of the territory’s prominent democracy advocates in jail and many others fleeing abroad, people snapped up copies at newsstands and in convenience stores.
“There are lots of injustices in Hong Kong already. I think there are a lot of things we cannot do anymore,” Lisa Cheung said. “Buying a copy is all what we can do. When the law cannot protect Hong Kong people anymore, we are only left to do what we can.”
The front page of yesterday’s edition splashed images of the five editors and executives led away in handcuffs. Police also confiscated 44 hard drives of news material.
A quote from Next Digital Ltd chief executive officer and Apple Daily publisher Cheung Kim-hung (張劍虹) said: “Hang in there, everyone.”
Another resident, William Chan, said he bought a copy of the paper as a show of support.
“It was such a groundless arrest and suppressed freedom of the press,” Chan said.
The National Security Law was imposed after massive protests in 2019 challenged Beijing’s rule by calling for broader democratic freedoms. It outlaws subversion, secession, terrorism and collusion with foreign nations. The maximum penalty for serious offenders is life imprisonment.
US Department of State spokesman Ned Price said that Washington strongly condemned the arrests and called for the immediate release of the five arrested.
He also called on Hong Kong authorities to stop targeting independent and free media.
“We are deeply concerned by Hong Kong authorities’ selective use of the National Security Law to arbitrarily target independent media organizations,” Price said, adding that the suspected foreign collusion charges appear to be politically motivated.
“As we all know, exchanging views with foreigners in journalism should never be a crime,” he said.
British Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs Dominic Raab wrote on Twitter that freedom of the press is one of the rights China had promised to protect for 50 years when Britain handed over Hong Kong in 1997.
“Today’s raids & arrests at Apple Daily in Hong Kong demonstrate Beijing is using the National Security Law to target dissenting voices, not tackle public security,” Raab wrote.
The Apple Daily has pledged to its readers that it would continue its reporting and on Thursday night invited members of the media to its printing presses to watch yesterday’s edition roll off in a show of commitment.
The newspaper’s founder, Jimmy Lai (黎智英), is currently serving a 20-month prison sentence on charges of playing a part in unauthorized protests in 2019.
The newspaper’s average daily circulation has been about 86,000 copies.
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