Hong Kongers are in a hurry to buy the latest edition of the Apple Daily

Hundreds of Hong Kongers lined up for hours on Thursday morning to buy the latest edition of the Apple Daily, shutting down the pro-democracy newspaper and freezing the arrests of major journalists and government assets one day.

A tabloid created by media moguls Jimmy Lai it has long angered Hong Kong and Beijing authorities for their coverage of city officials and horrific criticism of the Chinese Communist Party.

Her the closure has been seen as a deterioration in civil liberties and repression against the city’s political opposition, China imposed a tough national security law last year in 2019 after protests for democracy.

The law increased Beijing’s control of the territory, and in 1997 it was granted a high degree of autonomy after the British conquered China.

According to UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, the closure of Apple Daily proved that the national security law “was being used as a tool to restrict freedoms and punish dissent – rather than to maintain public order”.

Hong Kong executive chief Carrie Lam countered Western criticism of the forced closure of the paper, accusing the U.S. of “beautifying” criminal actions that endangered the state.

Hong Kong authorities have accused the paper and its executives of endangering national security by issuing calls for sanctions on the city and its officials after the 2019 protests. Chinese state media have named Apple Daily a secessionist.

Apple Daily printed a million copies of it last edition on Thursday, Much more than the usual circulation of about 150,000 copies.

In some kiosks, the lines were hundreds deep. In Mong Kok, one of the busiest shopping districts in the city of Kowloon, fans were put in kiosks at 1:00 a.m. to get a copy directly from the press. Many vendors were sold out by Thursday morning.

“I felt too sad to shed tears,” a 55-year-old man said he read the Apple Daily 26 years ago. “I read everything on paper, including the columns, the sport, everything. . . I don’t have any other newspaper in mind. “

At the offices of Next Digital, Apple Daily’s main company, workers gathered on the roof and shone their cell phones at the fans gathered below. Many employees resigned before the closure, especially after the police he attacked the company offices last week and five executives were arrested, including Ryan Law, the newspaper’s chief executive, under the national security law – the first time the national security rule was used against journalists.

Apple Daily’s news articles and other content came out offline at midnight on Thursday as a sign of concern about more legal issues facing the company. Internet users tried to archive the material on Hong Kong web forums.