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\nPHOTO (ARCHIVE): ANTHONY WALLACE \/ AFP<\/p>\n
Jimmy Lai, 71, founder of Hong Kong pro-democracy newspaper\u00a0Apple Daily<\/em>, was\u00a0arrested<\/a>\u00a0at his home residence on the morning of 10th August, 2020, under the accusation of \u201ccolluding with foreign forces\u201d.\u00a0 Lai\u2019s two sons and at least seven other members of his team were also arrested. According to the new\u00a0National Security Law<\/a>\u00a0imposed on June 30th by the Chinese regime, Lai risks life imprisonment if trialed in Hong Kong, and may even face the death penalty if the trial takes place in the People\u2019s Republic of China (PRC), which the law does not exclude.<\/p>\n Simultaneously, two hundred police officers\u00a0raided\u00a0Apple Daily<\/em>\u2019s headquarters<\/a>, blocking its journalists from entering the newsroom and obstructing several other major news outlets from covering the incident including\u00a0Associated Press (AP)<\/em>,\u00a0Agence France-Presse (AFP)<\/em>,\u00a0Reuters<\/em>, Hong Kong public broadcaster\u00a0RTHK,<\/em>\u00a0and local media\u00a0Initium<\/em>,\u00a0In-media<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Stand News<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cBy charging Apple Daily\u2019s founder with \u2018colluding with foreign forces\u2019, the Hong Kong government clearly seeks to take down a symbolic figure of press freedom\u201d<\/em>, says Christophe Deloire, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Secretary General, who urges for\u00a0\u201call charges to be dropped and all defendants immediately released\u201d<\/em>.<\/p>\n Next Digital<\/em>\u00a0(formerly\u00a0Next Media<\/em>), the parent company of\u00a0Apple Daily<\/em>, is one of the few remaining Hong Kong media groups openly critical of the Chinese regime and provided extensive coverage of last year\u2019s pro-democracy protests. Lai has since\u00a0been arrested on two occasions<\/a>\u00a0for criminal intimidation and organising and participating in unauthorised demonstrations. In addition, two websites publicising the personal information of\u00a0Apple Daily<\/em>\u00a0journalists with malicious intent that were previously blocked for doxing, made a brief reappearance online in early August.<\/p>\n The National Security Law allows the Chinese regime to directly intervene in the special administrative region of Hong Kong so as to\u00a0suppress, with the appearance of legality<\/a>, anything it deems to be \u201cterrorism\u201d, \u201csecession\u201d, \u201csubversion\u201d or \u201ccollusion with foreign forces\u201d. The vast majority of the 115 journalists currently detained in China are imprisoned under allegations of a similar nature.<\/p>\n