Jimmy Lai, chairman of Next Media, second left, is led away from his residence by law enforcement ... [+]
Jimmy Lai, the founder of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, was arrested and scores of police raided the paper’s headquarters Monday in the highest-profile case yet under Hong Kong’s new national security law.
Lai, 71, was arrested along with his eldest son, Timothy, and second son, Ian, and four other executives of the company. The police said the arrests were for offenses that included collusion with a foreign country to endanger national security and fraud.
The media mogul has been a longtime supporter of the campaign for democracy in the Chinese-ruled city and oftentimes a vocal critic of Beijing.
The national security law came into effect June 30 and is widely seen as a means to stifle dissent under its sweeping powers to enforce crimes of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with a foreign country.
Beijing and Hong Kong authorities have repeatedly insisted the law would only target an "extremely small minority of people" and bring stability after prolonged pro-democracy protests last year. But the law’s broadly worded offenses and punishments of up to life in prison has drawn condemnation from Western governments and international human rights groups.
Apple Daily’s reporters shared a livestream on social media showing around 200 police officers entering their offices, some of whom were seen rifling through reporters’ desks and then carting off stacks of boxes of evidence.
Apple Daily is published by Hong Kong-listed Next Digital, which was formerly called Next Media. The company’s trade union said the search of a newspaper’s headquarters by the police is an “extremely rare and serious incident” and described the impact of the raid as “catastrophic.”
“A great number of police officers were mobilized to search the headquarters of Next Digital, hindering the media company’s normal operations. The real motive behind this is to harass and intimidate the press,” the union said in a statement.
Shares of Next Digital soared by as much as 344% to HK$0.40, as online supporters encouraged people to support the company by buying its stock. It finished the day at HK$0.25.
Lai came to Hong Kong from China when he was only 12 years old. After working in garment factories, he eventually started his own business and built it into the Giordano apparel chain with shops across Asia.
Lai’s interest in politics came as a result of Beijing's crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989. He became one of the few tycoons in Hong Kong willing to criticize China’s leaders.
When Chinese authorities began shutting down his stores on the mainland, he sold Giordano and turned to publishing instead. He established Apple Daily in 1995, just two years before Hong Kong was returned to Chinese sovereignty.
