HK nabs media tycoon; tabloid newsroom raided
HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong police arrested media tycoon Jimmy Lai and raided the publisher’s headquarters yesterday in the highest-profile use yet of a new national security law Beijing imposed on the city in June.
“Jimmy Lai is being arrested for collusion with foreign powers at this time,” Mark Simon, an executive of Lai’s media group and his aide, wrote on Twitter.
The 71-year-old owns popular tabloid Apple Daily and is an outspoken pro-democracy figure in Hong Kong who regularly criticizes China’s authoritarian rule and Hong Kong’s government.
Masked and wearing a blue shirt and a light gray blazer, Lai was led out of his mansion in Kowloon by police officers also wearing surgical masks and was taken away. He was later brought to the headquarters of his media company Next Digital, where a police raid was ongoing according to a livestreamed video by staff.
Lai remained in the offices for two and a half hours before police took him away in a car.
Hong Kong police said seven people between 39 and 72 years old had been arrested on suspicion of violating the new security law, with offenses including collusion with a foreign country, but the statement did not reveal the names of those arrested.
The police did not rule out further arrests being made.
The move, coming days after the United States government announced sanctions on Hong Kong and mainland Chinese officials, shows China’s determination to move forward with the enforcement of the new law despite external pressure.
The officials shrugged off the sanctions, which may have limited practical effect, with one saying that being named by the US showed that he was doing the right thing for Hong Kong and China. They have rejected any criticism of Hong Kong policy as foreign interference in China’s domestic affairs.
Simon said police searched both Lai’s and his son’s home, and detained several other members of Next Digital, which Lai founded.
In May, shortly after Beijing announced its intention to pass the national security law in Hong Kong, Lai penned an op-ed in The New York
Times stating that China was repressing Hong Kong with the legislation.
“I have always thought I might one day be sent to jail for my publications or for my calls for democracy in Hong Kong,” Lai wrote.
“But for a few tweets, and because they are said to threaten the national security of mighty China? That’s a new one, even for me,” he said.