Hong Kong. Long lines across the country to pick up the final edition of the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily in Hong Kong sold over a million copies in no time. Apple Daily’s Graphic Designer Diction N G said emotionally on the occasion, ‘This is our last day and our final edition. This mirrors the reality that the freedom of the press from Hong Kong is now coming to an end.
As Apple Daily workers prepared the final edition, hundreds of people flocked to the newspaper’s building amid heavy rain, shouting slogans encouraging them. UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said on Twitter that the national security law is being used to curtail freedoms and punish dissent.
German State Department spokeswoman Maria Adebahr said it was a sign that freedom of expression and the press was being eroded in Hong Kong. It is to be known that Jimmy Lai, the founder of the 26-year-old Apple Daily newspaper, has already been jailed by the Hong Kong administration, giving him a sentence of twenty months in prison. Recently five editors including the chief editor and CEO were arrested. Documents and property were confiscated by raiding the press. This newspaper remained a strong voice of the fight for independence in Hong Kong, opposing Chinese laws.
The arrests of five editors and executives of the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily were made on suspicion of colluding with foreigners to endanger national security. The newspaper was under the eyes of China and the Chinese-backed Hong Kong government for a long time. Meanwhile, the governments of China and Hong Kong have warned the media to remain within the ambit of the law.
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