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進入《TAIPEI TIMES》 ‘Apple Daily’ defiant after arrests
An Apple Daily employee inspects an advertisement page with the words “No Fear of Oppression” at Next Digital’s printing facility in Hong Kong early yesterday. Photo: Bloomberg
DEFENDING A FREE PRESS: Hong Kongers lined up across the territory to buy copies of Lai’s newpaper, which ended up printing more than five times its normal print run
/ Reuters, HONG KONG
Hong Kong’s Apple Daily tabloid yesterday responded with defiance to the arrest of owner Jimmy Lai （黎智英） under a new National Security Law imposed by Beijing, promising to fight on in a front-page headline over an image of Lai in handcuffs.
Readers began lining up in the early hours to get copies of the pro-democracy tabloid, one day after police raided the headquarters of Lai’s Next Digital （壹傳媒） group and the newpaper’s offices and took Lai into detention, the highest-profile arrest under the new law.
“Apple Daily must fight on,” the front-page headline read, amid fears the new law erodes media freedoms in the territory.
“The prayers and encouragement of many readers and writers make us believe that as long as there are readers, there will be writers, and that Apple Daily shall certainly fight on,” it said.
More than 500,000 copies were printed, compared with the usual 100,000, the paper said on its Web site.
Mainland-born Lai, who was smuggled into Hong Kong on a fishing boat when he was a penniless 12-year-old, is one of the most prominent democracy advocates in the territory and an ardent critic of the Chinese Communist Party’s rule.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday called Lai a “patriot,” saying Beijing had “eviscerated” Hong Kong’s freedoms.
The UK said Lai’s arrest was further evidence the security law was a “pretext to silence opposition,” to which China’s embassy replied by urging London to stop “using freedom of the press as an excuse to discredit” the law.
Police detained Lai for suspected collusion with foreign forces after about 200 officers searched the newspaper’s offices, collecting 25 boxes of what they said was evidence.
Handcuffed and apparently wearing the same clothes after spending the night in jail, he was driven by police yesterday to his yacht, which police searched, according to media footage.
Police arrested 10 people in all on Monday, including other Apple Daily executives, two of Lai’s sons and 23-year-old Agnes Chow （周庭）, one of the former leaders of Joshua Wong’s （黃之鋒） Demosisto group, which disbanded before the new law came into force on June 30.
In the working-class neighborhood of Mong Kok, dozens of people lined up as early as 2am to buy Lai’s paper.
“What the police did yesterday interfered with press freedom brutally,” 45-year-old Kim Yau said as she bought a copy. “All Hong Kong people with a conscience have to support Hong Kong today, support Apple Daily.”
In another show of support, long lines formed at lunch time at the Cafe Seasons restaurant owned by Lai’s second son, Ian Lai Yiu-yan （黎耀恩）.
However, the state-run China Daily said in an editorial yesterday that Jimmy Lai’s arrest showed “the cost of dancing with the enemy.”
The paper added that “justice delayed didn’t mean the absence of justice.”
Meanwhile, Chow’s detention was front page news yesterday in Japan, while the hashtag #FreeAgnes 0trended on Japanese Twitter.
Chow, a Japanese speaker who helped galvanize support in Japan for the territory’s pro-democracy movement, has been dubbed “the goddess of democracy” by local media.
A cross-party group of Japanese lawmakers is to hold a protest meeting today against the arrests, Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Akihisa Nagashima said on Twitter.
新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES
