Two Apple Daily Executives Charged, Supporters Buy Paper

Law (left), Cheung (right) charged with national security law

Following the arrest of five Apple Daily executives on Thursday, two were charged with violating the national security law, while the other three were released on bail today.

Chief editor Ryan Law Wai-kwong and chief executive Cheung Kim-hung were charged with conspiring to collude with foreign forces, while associate publisher Chan Pui-man, chief financial officer Chow Tat-kuen, and digital director Cheung Chi-wai were released after being detained for 40 hours, pending further investigation.

Chan praised Apple Daily staff for their hard work

Emerging from Tseung Kwan O police station after 10pm, Chan was sad that two of her colleagues were charged, but that she would go to court tomorrow morning to support them.

"Over the past 40 hours when I was detained, I know my colleagues in Apple Daily have been standing fast professionally," she said. "They continue to cover and report the news. I am very proud of them. I am touched. We will do our best."

Around 12.15am last night Apple Daily had a Facebook live video filming vans being filled with stacks of the Friday edition of the paper and they fanned out across the city distributing the paper to news vendors. 

The reporter explained to some 2,000 viewers that the vans would have to do several rounds to send out 500,000 copies of the paper.

A man buys some 20 copies to show his support

Then around 12.30am the first stacks of the paper arrived at a news stand in Mongkok and already there was a line of people waiting to buy the paper. The vendor had to assemble the pages together before selling them. Some people bought one or two, but there were others who bought, 10 or 20 copies each.

A reporter asked why they bought so many, and they said it was to support Apple Daily. When asked if he had some words for the newspaper's staff, a young man said: "You usually 'add oil' when people are not trying hard enough. Everyone at the paper is doing their best, so it would be unethical to 'add oil'."

Another man said he bought the paper to support press freedom. When asked for his surname, he thought for a second and said, "Poon, my name is Poon." 

Sure.

Interestingly government adviser and senior council Ronny Tong Ka-wah clarified that buying a copy of Apple Daily did not violate the national security law. 

Why did he even say that?

"The core issue was [the articles] calling for foreign forces to impose sanctions or take hostile action against Hong Kong and the central government. Any other acts that do not touch on this would not offend the law, such as buying copies of the newspaper," Tong said during a Friday morning radio show.

However, Professor Johannes Chan Man-mun, chair of public law of the University of Hong Kong's law department, disagreed, noting police had also frozen HK$18 million (US$2.32 million) in assets of the three affiliated Apple Daily companies.

"If the arrests only [targeted] the senior staff... why did [police] not freeze the assets of the five senior staff members instead?" he said on another radio program.

But everyone is wondering how much longer Apple Daily will continue as there are rumours it could be shut down by July 1...

 

Apple Daily is Raided Again

500 officers were involved in this morning's Next Digital raid

 

Hong Kong's press freedoms continue to erode significantly despite government claims it is still protected.

The city woke up this morning to read the news that five executives from Apple Daily were arrested for allegedly violating the national security law, while the office where the newspaper is produced was swarmed by 500 police officers who took away lots of material, including computers from the newsroom.

This is the second time Apple Daily has been raided -- last August 10, officers descended on the Tseung Kwan O offices, arresting founder Jimmy Lai Chee-ying in front of staff, while editor in chief Ryan Law Wai-kwong vowed the newspaper would continue to run. And if they were raided again, they would start filming right away.

Editor in chief Ryan Law was arrested today

But this time the police prevented reporters from filming what was going on and limited their movements in the office, and Law himself was arrested at his home, along with four senior executives. 

The police said there were 30 articles that were evidence the paper was conspiring to collude with foreign forces by encouraging foreign countries to impose sanctions on Hong Kong and Chinese officials.

The force also froze assets of three related companies -- Apple Daily Limited, Apple Daily Printed Limited, and AD Internet Limited, amounting to HK$18 million (US$2.43 million). Next Digital suspended trading its shares today.

Watching this unfold in real time was chilling for many journalists, especially those who work for Apple Daily, wondering if this is really the beginning of the end.

Even Lai's right hand man, Mark Simon has fled to the United States, reported in an interview with Reuters. He said he was very concerned about the paper's future.

Later in the day, Secretary for Security John Lee Ka-chiu said endangering national security "is an extremely serious crime. We need to curb such acts with the strongest measures, and consider all effective measures that the law allows."

Lee says to obey the law to avoid violating NSL

He said the raid at 6am this morning was not to target the press, but only to go after a publication that used "news coverage as a tool" to harm national security.

"The suspects tried to make use of journalistic works to collude with foreign countries or external elements to impose sanctions or take hostile action against Hong Kong and the central government. We need to differentiate what the suspects have done from normal journalistic work," he said.

What's "normal journalistic work"?

Lee was also ominous in saying people should cut ties with the five executives.

"Ordinary journalists are different, and should not get involved with them, keep a distance from them," he said in a press conference. "I hereby solemnly declare that: don't associate with these criminals endangering national security, you will pay a hefty price if [you] stand with these criminals, [you] should cut ties with these criminals before it's too late to repent."

He has already labelled the five as criminals before they have even gone to trial.

Police took lots of material including Lee'

Lee's advice to members of the media? "So the answer is simple: do your journalistic work as freely as you like in accordance with the law, provided you do not conspire or have any intention to break the Hong Kong law, and certainly not the Hong Kong national security law."

Meanwhile Chris Yeung Kin-hing, chairman of the Hong Kong Journalists Association described the raid as "shocking" and "scary".

He told RTHK it was "quite scary" that the force was building a case around a number of newspaper articles, some of which date back to 2019 -- before the national security law was even implemented.

"Officials had repeatedly assured people that there would not be a retrospective effect of the law, but in practice, or in the enforcement of the law, it seems that's just empty words," Yeung said.

He added the latest developments will undoubtedly send a chill across the whole of society and will exacerbate self-censorship within the news industry.

"The fact that police seized and searched journalists' materials... there had been no protection to journalistic materials. That would create a chilling effect on not just the media, but for the public who will feel unsafe and uneasy talking to the media."

Reporters continue to file stories for tomorrow

Nevertheless, Apple Daily's reporters soldiered on, returned to the office to file stories and now after midnight, trucks are being loaded with 500,000 copies of the paper and being distributed across the city.

Copies will undoubtedly be snatched up tomorrow morning, a small act of support for what Apple Daily stands for. 

Hours before his arrest, editor in chief Law wrote a letter to readers.

"We want to be a newspaper for the people of Hong Kong."

Despite wanting to be a Hong Kong paper, how much longer can it sustain attacks that are financial, and now political?