MEDIA MOGUL CHARGED UNDER NEW SECURITY LAW
In two strokes unveiled Friday, the Chinese Communist Party laid out in stark relief the rapidly shrinking space for speech and independent journalism in China.
In Hong Kong, police said Friday that Jimmy Lai, the outspoken founder of an ardently anti-government newspaper, Apple Daily, had been charged under the city’s new national security law with colluding with foreign forces. Hours later, Bloomberg News disclosed that plainclothes security officials had earlier in the week detained Haze Fan, a Chinese staffer in Beijing, also on potential national security violations.
Both announcements were shrouded in secrecy. The police in Hong Kong did not specify how Lai was said to have colluded with foreign countries. Chinese officials said only that Fan, who had been taken four days earlier from her apartment, was accused of “criminal activities that jeopardize national security,” according to Bloomberg’s report.
But both cases made clear how potent the party’s aggressive use of national security concerns has been in spreading fear, both among its own people and in foreign organizations.
Pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong said the indictment of Lai was a clear warning that Beijing intended to use the security law, which was enacted in June, to silence dissent and erode free speech. Lai had been one of the most internationally recognized faces of last year’s massive pro-democracy protests, pouring his fortune and his platform into supporting them.
State-run news outlets have railed against Lai as a “black hand” behind last year’s protests, pointing to his U.S. trip last year to lobby Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for action against China.
Police did not specify what Lai was accused of having done to violate the security law.