Media freedom: Hong Kong police arrest ex-editor of squashed Apple Daily
Hong Kong police have detained two former senior staff of stifled pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, just hours after they arrested the paper’s former executive editor-in-chief.
Apple Daily’s former deputy chief editor Chan Pui-Man and managing editor Fung Wai-Kong were arrested for a second time, according to local media reports.
The pair had already been arrested for “colluding with foreign forces” under China’s controversial national security law and were detained while on bail.
Former executive editor-in-chief Lam Man-Chung was arrested earlier this morning, AFP first reported.
Police seized his computers and mobile phones for investigation.
CityAM has contacted Next Digital, which owns Apple Daily, for comment.
The newspaper had been targetted by Beijing for some time, after its billionaire and pro-democracy activist owner Jimmy Lai, was imprisoned for protesting last year.
‘Collusion’
In two separate statements, Hong Kong police confirmed the arrest of a 51-year-old former newspaper editor and the withdrawal of bail for a 51-year-old woman and a 57-year-old man for “collusion with foreign forces”.
Lam is the eighth employee of Apple Daily arrested in a month, due to the national security law Beijing imposed on the former British colony last year – despite mass protests.
Officials said the newspaper’s reporting, which closely tracked the pro-democracy protests last year, supported the international voices calling for sanctions against China.
The latest arrests come amid widespread media censorship in Hong Kong, which saw an annual book fair slash its offering and only display a ‘politically sensitive’ selection.
The fair typically draws hundreds of thousands of people eyeing the latest bestsellers to works by political figures.
But this year, vendors self-censored their displays to avoid violating the sweeping national security law which has pushed an exodus from the territory.