At dawn, Wednesday, December 29, the premises of News stand, one of the last independent media outlets in Hong Kong, was raided by a hundred police officers in uniform and in civilian clothes, arrived on site with dozens of large plastic boxes. Employees already in the offices were ordered to vacate the premises, and the building was cordoned off. A few moments later, News stand announced the cessation of its activities after learning of the freezing of its assets (61 million Hong Kong dollars, or 6.9 million euros).
In parallel with the searches, at least six leaders or former members of the board of the online newspaper were arrested at their homes. Among the personalities arrested in connection with this operation and identified by the local press are singer Denise Ho, famous popstar and pro-democracy activist, who had resigned from the board of directors of News stand in November, the great lawyer and former MP, Margaret Ng, as well as Chung Pui-kuen, former editor-in-chief of the online newspaper. Mr. Chung had also resigned from his post recently. His wife, Chan Pui-man, also sued for her responsibilities in the former opposition newspaper Apple Daily, closed in June by the authorities, was also reportedly arrested, said the South China Morning Post, Wednesday.
The police simply confirmed the arrest of “Three men and three women, aged 34 to 73”, for “conspiring to publish seditious material, in contravention of Sections 9 and 10 of the Crimes Decree”. Although the operation was carried out by the National Security Police Department (an ad hoc force, created especially to implement the new national security law that entered into force on June 30, 2020), the arrests were made under a law dating from the colonial era (Crimes Ordinance 1937) rather than under the guise of this new law. If this is more severe, it is in fact not retroactive and therefore cannot, theoretically, apply to facts prior to June 30, 2020.
At the hearing of Jimmy Lai, the founder of the Next Digital press group, and other executives ofApple Daily, the former major opposition newspaper, which took place at the West Kowloon court on Tuesday, December 28, the judges also announced that the defendants would also be prosecuted for the same offense of “conspiracy to produce and to distribute seditious elements ”, defined by this colonial law. The next hearing for the leaders of theApple Daily was set for the end of February.
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