HK SNAPS UP BESIEGED PAPER’S FINAL 1M COPIES
KONG—Hong Kong’s prodemocracy Apple Daily tabloid said it was a “victim of tyranny” in a defiant final edition on Thursday after it was forced to close under a new national security law, ending a 26-year run of taking on China’s authoritarian leaders.
The sudden death of the popular newspaper is the latest blow to Hong Kong’s freedoms, deepening unease over whether the international finance center can remain a media hub as China seeks to stamp out dissent.
Queues formed across Hong Kong on Thursday as residents raced to snap up one of the 1 million copies Apple Daily said it planned to print. Many vendors sold out within minutes and were awaiting fresh deliveries.
The swansong front page featured the paper’s own journalists waving goodbye to crowds outside its headquarters.
“Apple Daily is dead,” deputy chief editor Chan Pui-man, who was arrested last week on a national security charge, wrote in a farewell letter to readers.
“Press freedom became the victim of tyranny.”
In the working-class district of Mongkok, hundreds queued through the early hours of the morning to get their hands on the final edition, some chanting “Apple Daily we will meet again!”
Hong Kong’s most popular tabloid had long been a thorn in Beijing’s side, with unapologetic support for the city’s prodemocracy movement and caustic criticism of China’s authoritarian leaders.
Ultimate blow
Those same leaders used a new security law to bring about its rapid demise.
Owner Jimmy Lai, currently in jail for attending democracy protests, was among the first to be charged under the law after its imposition last year.
But the final chapter was written over the last week when authorities deployed the security law to raid the newsroom, arrest senior executives and freeze its assets.
That last move crippled the paper’s ability to conduct business or pay staff and the news group decided Thursday’s newspaper—a run of 1 million copies in a city of 7.5 million— would be its last.
Overnight it took down its website, Twitter and Facebook accounts.
Some 1,000 people, including 700 journalists, are now out of work.
More than 60 people have now been charged under the law.