Latest News Hong Kong police declare Apple Daily newsroom

Hong Kong police declared the Apple Daily newspaper office a crime scene Thursday, after 500 officers descended on the premises to arrest executives and top editors and seize journalistic materials under the city's national security law.

تازہ ترین خبریں Apple Daily said Thursday that the company's CEO Cheung Kim Hung, COO Chow Tat Kuen and chief editor Ryan Law, along with the deputy chief editor and online editor were all arrested and accused of colluding with foreign forces to endanger national security — a provision of the sweeping legislation introduced last year that banned sedition, secession and subversion against Beijing.

"This case involves a conspiracy," Hong Kong Security Secretary John Lee told reporters at a press conference Thursday, adding that the police raid was targeted at those who use journalism as a "tool to endanger national security."

Senior superintendent Steve Li, of the police's national security department, said 18 million Hong Kong dollars ($2.3 million) in assets related to the newspaper had been frozen. The assets are owned by three companies: Apple Daily, Apple Publishing & A.D. Internet Limited.

The publication live-streamed the early morning raid on its Facebook page, showing police asking staff to show proof of identity, and blocking them from returning to their desks.

The Hong Kong government confirmed Thursday that it had arrested five "directors of a company" on suspicion of violating the national security law and that officers had obtained a search warrant which gave officers the power to seize journalist material.

After the initial raid, Li said Apple Daily's headquarters was now a crime scene, and that officers had confiscated electronic devices, such as mobile phones, computers and laptops. In images published online by Apple Daily, police officers could be seen examining computers at the office.

He said police were investigating Apple Daily for its earlier attempts to "colluding with foreign forces and external elements to endanger national security." Li said that since 2019 Apple Daily had published articles calling on foreign countries to sanction the Chinese and Hong Kong governments.

Last year, the deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council said the national security law, which came into effect on June 30, would not be retroactive.

Li also urged the public not to repost the content. "If you have no real reason to share these types of articles, I would advise everyone not to," Li warned.

"The government is raiding Apple Daily because they can't shut it down by economic pressure," Mark Simon, managing director of the private holdings of newspaper's controversial founder Jimmy Lai, told CNN Business. "So that means we have 130 cops in our newsroom vacuuming up documents."

The arrests and probe are the latest step in an escalating crackdown against the provocative, anti-Beijing tabloid, which has become the poster child in Hong Kong for media freedom in what many analysts argue is an increasingly hostile landscape for the industry.

Media mogul Lai — who for decades has been a symbol of the city's tensions with mainland China — already faces charges under the national security law and is currently serving jail sentences for his role in unauthorized assemblies dating from the 2019 pro-democracy protests.