For many Hong Kong citizens, the shutdown of the popular tabloid Apple Daily marks another dark turn in an increasingly authoritarian governance of the city-state by Communist China.
APPLE Daily, Hong Kong’s most popular pro-democracy newspaper, ceased operation yesterday, June 24, after police arrested its executives and froze the company’s assets using a Beijing-imposed national security law.
The newspaper said its Thursday edition would be its last, and it would stop updating its website after Wednesday.
The Wednesday announcement came after the paper’s parent company, Next Digital, said Apple Daily’s print and digital editions would shut down no later than Sunday owing to “the current circumstances prevailing in Hong Kong.”
“The company thanks our readers for their loyal support and our journalists, staff and advertisers for their commitment over the past 26 years,” the company said in a statement.
The 26-year-old newspaper, which is majority owned by jailed Beijing critic Jimmy Lai, has come under immense pressure from Hong Kong authorities, who in the past week froze company assets, seized journalists’ computers and charged two of its top executives under a national-security law that was imposed by Beijing last year to crush dissent in the city.
The paper has been struggling to carry on its operations since police raided its newsroom last week and arrested five executives, including the chief editor.
They were accused of violating the national security law imposed by the Chinese government last year to eliminate challenges to Beijing’s authority over the city.
The authorities also froze 18 million Hong Kong dollars ($2.3 million) in the parent company’s assets. Next Digital said it could not pay its staff if the government would not unfreeze part of its assets.
Expecting an imminent shutdown, employees have in recent days started taking leave and bidding goodbye to the newsroom.
“The era of free political speech as we have long known it is gone,” said Sharron Fast, a journalism lecturer at the University of Hong Kong, who noted recent moves to censor books, art and movies in the city.
“The loss of Apple at this point almost feels like we are at the brink of collapse. And it is natural for this loss to be profoundly felt in the city.”
Founded in 1995, two years before the U.K. handed the city back to China, Apple Daily and its sister Next Magazine rocketed to become among the city’s most widely read publications with a mix of tabloid-style gossip, local news, investigations and aggressive political reporting on Hong Kong and China’s ruling Communist Party. (NP)
Tags: #HongKong, #pressfreedom, #AppleDaily