Reporters Without Borders has described the closure of Hong Kong’s Apple Daily newspaper as a “chilling message” to press freedom. – AFP photo
MOSCOW (June 24): Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on Wednesday described the closure of Hong Kong’s Apple Daily newspaper as a “chilling message” to press freedom.
Earlier in the day, the media’s board of directors announced that Apple Daily will shut down its operations from June 27, as they are unable to pay staff and suppliers after Beijing froze their financial assets, Sputnik reported.
“The tearing down of Apple Daily, one of the last major Chinese-language media critical of the Beijing regime, after years of harassment, is sending a chilling message to Hong Kong journalists,” RSF East Asia bureau head Cedric Alviani said.
Alviani went on to call on the global community to step in.
Earlier this month, Apple Daily reported that hundreds of police officers had raided the tabloid’s headquarters in the Tseung Kwan O district in Hong Kong. The newspaper said that several of its executives were arrested and accused of “collusion with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security”.
The founder of Apple Daily, Jimmy Lai, earlier became the highest-profile Hong Kong citizen arrested under the new national security law. He was found guilty of organising and taking part in unauthorised rallies in the summer of 2019 and sentenced to a year in prison in April. In May, the media tycoon got another 14 months of imprisonment. — Bernama