HK’s Apple Daily newsroom raided by 500 officers over national security law

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HONG KONG — 5 hundred Hong Kong cops sifted by means of reporters’ computer systems and notebooks at pro-democracy tabloid Apple Each day on Thursday, the primary case during which authorities have cited media articles as doubtlessly violating the nationwide safety legislation.

Round daybreak, police arrested 5 executives of the newspaper, and officers had been later seen sitting at computer systems within the newsroom after coming into with a warrant to grab journalistic supplies, together with from reporters’ telephones and laptops.

The raid is the newest blow to media tycoon Jimmy Lai, the tabloid’s proprietor and a staunch Beijing critic, whose property have been frozen underneath the safety legislation and who’s serving jail sentences for participating in unlawful assemblies.

In feedback elevating additional alarm over media freedoms in Hong Kong, Safety Secretary John Lee described the newsroom as a “crime scene” and mentioned the operation was aimed toward those that use reporting as a “instrument to hazard” nationwide safety.

He didn’t elaborate on the handfuls of articles police mentioned they had been taking intention, at however mentioned the 5 had been arrested for a conspiracy to make “use of journalistic work” to incite overseas forces to impose sanctions on Hong Kong and China.

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“Regular journalists are completely different from these individuals. Don’t collude with them,” he informed reporters.

“Do your journalistic work as freely as you want in accordance with the legislation, supplied you don’t conspire or have any intention to interrupt … the nationwide safety legislation.”

Senior superintendent Li Kwai-wah mentioned the tabloid’s studies dated again to 2019, with out saying when the newest had been revealed. The laws shouldn’t be retrospective however prosecutors can use actions from earlier than its implementation as proof.

Police have additionally frozen HK$18 million ($2.32 million) of property owned by three firms linked to Apple Each day and mentioned that the raid was not aimed on the media business as an entire.

It was the second time nationwide safety police have raided the Apple Each day headquarters; 200 officers went in final 12 months to arrest Lai on suspicion of colluding with overseas forces.

Lai has been in detention since December, denied bail underneath the safety legislation and serving a number of sentences for participating in some unauthorized rallies, together with throughout the international monetary hub’s mass pro-democracy protests in 2019.

The safety legislation was Beijing’s first main transfer to set China’s most restive metropolis on an authoritarian path. It punishes something Beijing deems as subversion, secessionism, terrorism and collusion with overseas forces with as much as life in jail.

The 5 individuals arrested had been editor-in-chief Ryan Regulation, chief government officer Cheung Kim-hung, Chief Working Officer Chow Tat-kuen, Deputy Chief Editor Chan Puiman and Chief Government Editor Cheung Chi-wai.

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“This can be a blatant assault on the editorial facet of Apple Each day,” Mark Simon, an adviser to Lai who’s outdoors Hong Kong, informed Reuters. “They’re arresting the highest editorial of us.”

Requested how lengthy he thinks the newspaper can survive, Simon mentioned: “They resolve, not us,” referring to authorities.

China’s Hong Kong Liaison Workplace mentioned it firmly supported what it described as “simply motion” by the police.

‘ORWELLIAN’ LAW

Photos revealed by Apple Each day confirmed police sitting at reporters’ desks and utilizing their computer systems. An individual streaming a stay feed for Apple Each day’s Fb web page mentioned reporters had been prevented from accessing sure flooring or getting their gear or notebooks.

Chief editor Regulation was seen strolling in handcuffs, flanked by cops. The Apple Each day paper’s common information desk informed reporters in a textual content message seen by Reuters to hold on with their assignments outdoors the constructing in the interim.

The transfer is the newest blow to Apple Each day after authorities final month directed jailed tycoon Lai’s shares in Subsequent Digital , writer of the newspaper, to be frozen.

In Might, Reuters reported that Hong Kong’s safety chief despatched letters to Lai and branches of HSBC and Citibank threatening as much as seven years in jail for any dealings with the billionaire’s accounts within the metropolis.

Apple Each day is an unapologetic tabloid that mixes pro-democracy discourse with superstar gossip and investigations of these in energy, and is common in Hong Kong.

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“The arrests … underneath Hong Kong’s Orwellian Nationwide Safety Regulation destroy any remaining fiction that Hong Kong helps freedom of the press,” mentioned Steven Butler, Committee to Defend Journalists’ Asia program coordinator.

“China, which controls Hong Kong, might be able to remove the paper, which it sees as an annoying critic, however solely at a steep value to be paid by the individuals of Hong Kong, who had loved a long time of free entry to info,” he added. (Reporting by Sharon Tam, Sharon Abratique, Sara Cheng, Clare Jim, Donny Kwok, and Anne Marie Roantree; writing by Marius Zaharia; Modifying by Michael Perry and Gerry Doyle)