HONG KONG • The editor and publisher of the Apple Daily newspaper were arraigned yesterday on charges under Hong Kong's sweeping national security law.
Editor-in-chief Ryan Law, and Cheung Kim Hung, the newspaper's publisher and chief executive officer of parent company Next Digital, were denied bail and their case was adjourned to Aug 13, according to a ruling by Chief Magistrate Victor So.
Mr So said there were insufficient grounds "for the court to believe that the defendants will not continue to commit acts endangering national security".
Law, 47, and Cheung, 59, were detained on Thursday. A charge sheet states that between July 1 last year and this April 3, they conspired with Next Digital founder Jimmy Lai and others to request foreign forces to impose sanctions or a blockade, or engage in other hostile activities against Hong Kong or China.
About 500 police officers on Thursday raided the headquarters of Apple Daily, the second time in 12 months. They searched the company's offices, barred journalists from their desks and eventually carted away nearly 40 computers belonging to journalists, the paper said. The authorities also arrested chief operating officer Royston Chow and deputy editors Chan Pui Man and Cheung Chi Wai.
"We will still publish the newspaper tomorrow. We will try our best to keep running," said Chan, who attended yesterday's hearing and was speaking outside the court after bail had been denied.
Dozens of supporters had queued to get seats in court, including many former and current employees of Apple Daily. A staff member, who gave her surname as Chang, said she and many other Apple Daily employees treat "every day like it is our last" working for the paper.
"At first, authorities said the national security law would only target a tiny number of people," she told Agence France-Presse. "But what has happened showed us that is nonsense," she added. Another staff reporter, who gave her first name as Theresa, said: "I think what has happened to Apple Daily today can eventually happen to every other news outlet in the city."
The unprecedented move to arrest senior editors at a major newspaper - and warn other journalists to watch what they write - has rattled a city that has seen Beijing swiftly erode basic freedoms in the former British colony.
A police official on Thursday said Apple Daily had published dozens of articles that gave foreign powers "ammunition" to sanction Hong Kong and China, adding that the newspaper office was now a crime scene.
As part of bail conditions, Cheung's legal team had proposed a HK$3 million (S$520,000) bond, while Law's suggested an amount of between HK$100,000 and HK$200,000. They were both willing to resign from all roles related to Next Digital, and would no longer be involved in the company's operations. The judge lifted restrictions for the media to report on bail conditions, but allegations, prosecution reasoning and legal arguments were still prohibited.
Media tycoon Lai, 73, is a fierce critic of Beijing who is serving more than a year in prison for attending unauthorised protests. He has been the most high-profile target of the government's push against democracy advocates in Hong Kong.
Last month, the Hong Kong government froze all of Lai's shares of Next Digital and the local bank accounts of three companies owned by him. He will be on trial again in July over the violation of the city's national security law, and face the possibility of life imprisonment.
BLOOMBERG, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
