Hong Kong’s rough tabloid refuses to bow to Beijing Freedom of the press News

Hong Kong, China – The latest edition of Apple Daily, a small Hong Kong tabloid that came out as a champion and critic of Chinese democracy, came out of the press four days after the newspaper celebrated its 26th anniversary.

Police have twice entered the role in the last ten months in the last ten months on suspicion of violating the National Security Law that Beijing enacted almost a year ago. Since his first sweeps last August, founder Jimmy Lai, 73, has been in jail pending trial under the law.

Five senior executives, including the editor-in-chief, were arrested at last week’s network for allegedly committing security crimes at the 500 police headquarters in Apple, along with another employee who was arrested Wednesday morning (editor-in-chief).

The last nail in the coffin, however, was a freeze on the bank accounts of the media group that owns the paper by Hong Kong authorities. The move made it impossible for the papers to be paid for by employees and vendors, even as readers pulled out copies to show their support.

The decision was based on “reflections on employee safety and manpower,” the Apple Daily said Wednesday when it announced the closure.
“We say goodbye here. Take care of yourself. “

Hong Kong returned to Chinese authority in 1997 under the framework of “one country, two systems” with the aim of guaranteeing rights and freedoms that did not exist on the peninsula. For the past 20 years, the territory has continued to be a bastion of press freedom in a country that the media denies.

The disappearance of the “Apple Daily” denies “one country, two systems” and “establishes one country, one system,” said Willy Lame, a longtime commentator on Chinese politics and a veteran newspaper editor. “

Brave, shameless

Apple Daily was created two years before it was delivered, it was both a gamble and a leap of faith.

“The paper wanted to influence not only Hong Kong, but also China’s liberalization,” Lam told Al Jazeera. “But as China has become less open to Western values, the role has been focused on defending Hong Kong values ​​and holding Beijing accountable.”

In the initial editorial, Apple Daily said it wanted to play a role for the people of Hong Kong.

Lai, its founder and financier, a devout Catholic who had a fortune in the fashion business, named the paper the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden in the Old Testament. His rhyming couplets – “Every day an Apple, can’t lie” – Hong Kong readers turned their attention to the more demanding offers.

It was loud. She was brave, bright.

The paper caught the attention of Deng Xiaoping (who was then China’s chief executive in February at the age of 92) when he threw a photo taken hidden in the foreground in his bed.

Brashness was his sale.

His correspondents often bent over public officials and needleed them comfortably.

“He tells the truth about power and finds a way to make it profitable,” said Lokman Tsui, an assistant professor of journalism at the University of China in Hong Kong.

Jimmy Laik, next to one of the printers, in 2009 created a hugely popular role in favor of democracy, was not afraid to tell the truth and was critical of the Communist Party of Beijing. [File: Alex Hofford/EPA]

Apple Daily founder and financier Jimmy Lai was arrested in August under national security law and searched at the newspaper’s headquarters. They have now been jailed [File: Tyrone Siu/Reuters]

The paper had high and low foreheads. The colorful expanses of female models wearing little paper appeared in the same section of the paper as erudite columns with references to classical Latin and Chinese. With a few exceptions, the level of his columnists belonged to the pro-democracy circle of the territory.

Giving people what they want

Launched in the early days of the Internet, the everyday was rapidly adapting to the digital world. His website was a forerunner of animated news: he mixed still photos, short clips and clear graphics with sour sarcasm. YouTube’s lifestyle channel created passionate followers.

A decade later, 500,000 people arrived in the city of approximately six million people in a fortnight.

Apple Daily’s proclamation journalism brand would soon turn the paper in favor of the Communist Party of China. Lai, who is rich in millions of wealthy people in Beijing, has been declared a public enemy 1 by Beijing, which was to give what it would buy to its customers, as well as to denounce poster grafting.

In the summer of 2019, amid opposition to legislation that would send Hong Kong residents to trial on the Chinese mainland, the paper summed up “extradition to China” in a colloquial homophonic Cantonese phrase of seeing someone at the grave. The expression immediately caught on and became a rallying cry in the protest movement.

“Sometimes we might go overboard, but everything we did was within the law,” said Robert Chan, 45, who has been covering the Chinese mainland for the past three years.

That is until the security law is passed, which punishes those who face imprisonment, sedition, collusion with foreign forces, and secession with life sentences.

Prosecutors used Laik’s frequent meetings with U.S. officials in recent years, less than the then vice president, as evidence of his alleged “connection to foreign powers.”

Employees of Apple Daily and Next Digital Publishing did so on June 23 in the latest edition of the newspaper. In his first editorial, he said he wanted the paper to be a Hong Kong people’s publication. He printed a million copies of the last edition [Tyrone Siu/Reuters]

Earlier last month, rumors began that Beijing on July 1 wanted the Communist Party to see newspapers closed for centennial celebrations.

Alex Tang, a 37-year-old tech reporter who was 37 years old, said he was conditioned like most of his colleagues to take unproven gossip with a grain of salt – until the second attack and the company’s assets froze.

In recent days, some of the newspaper’s 800 reporters were frustrated by the lack of a definitive response and a break in the last publication date.

“Management said they would hang on until the rough end, and they kept their word,” Tang said. “The company has done its best.”

Apple Daily will live as a website on the self-managed island of Taiwan, and stopped publishing it on paper last month.

In Hong Kong, Chan Chinese reporter Chan said he would regret losing so much more than his life.

“With the disappearance of paper, the values ​​it would replace would also be the pursuit of freedom and democracy,” he said.