Hong Kong media tycoon and leading pro-democracy figure Jimmy Lai has been arrested for alleged foreign conspiracy.
The 71-year-old founder of news outlet Apple Daily was arrested Monday morning under new national security laws. Lai was already facing several other charges last year over the organization and promotion of protests.
Hong Kong police confirmed that seven people aged 39 to 72 were arrested on suspicion of collusion with foreign troops against national security, and collusion to commit fraud. “The police operation is still ongoing and does not contain any more arrests,” it said.
Chinese state media, CCTV said the seven people including Lai were arrested by the newly established Hong Kong National Security Agency and pro-Beijing Hong Kong title, Oriental Daily, said that a warrant was also issued for Mark Simon, Lai’s top aide.
Apple Daily reported that Lai’s son was also arrested.
The arrests come after the US imposed sanctions on senior Hong Kong officials, including chief executive Carrie Lam, and will elaborate on Hong Kong’s democratic decline at noon.
Last week, elections for September were delayed by a year, apparently due to the pandemic, and the candidates for pro-democracy were disqualified.
On Sunday, Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand urged Hong Kong to hold elections as soon as possible.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said in the joint statement of the “five eyes” countries seriously concerned about the disqualification of candidates in Hong Kong.
“We call on the Hong Kong Government to consider the disqualification of disqualified candidates,” the statement said. “We urge the Hong Kong Government to hold the elections as soon as possible.”
It said the security law “eroded the fundamental rights and freedoms of the Hong Kong people”.
When Lai is charged with felony criminal mischief for crimes, he faces potential sentences of three to 10 years in prison, or up to life for a crime “of a serious nature”.
Lai’s company, Next Media, is the publisher of Apple Daily, Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy daily. Activist Eddie Chu-hoi Dick accused the Chinese Communist Party of closing the paper, saying Lai’s arrest was’ the first step of [a] HK media blackout ”.
Jeffrey Wasserstrom, a China academic at the University of California, and author of Hong Kong on the Brink, said the move could be linked to anger over U.S. sanctions, ‘but they’re also part of the ongoing trend. , blow to blow against people and institutions in Hong Kong connected to its vibrant society. ”
He said the current circumstances were potentially stricter than Lai’s previous arrests, which occurred prior to the implementation of the national security law, when there was “another separation of powers” in Hong Kong.
“There is a risk, under this appalling new norm, that he could be taken to the mainland to be tried,” he said. “Differences between political life and civil society in Hong Kong and cities on the mainland still remain, but events such as these arrests show that what was once a cloister does not quickly, very quickly, become a narrow gulf.”
The national security laws were enacted by Beijing in late June.
Offenses of foreign collusion include applying or colluding with a foreign country, institution, organization or individual – or receiving instruction or funding from them – to interrupt government legislation, undermine an election, or impose sanctions on Hong Kong or mainland China. China. “Serving through unlawful means of hatred among Hong Kong residents against the Hong Kong government or mainland China” is also prohibited.
Lai was also charged Friday among 25 people for attending a massage parlor on Tiananmen Square on June 4.
A report in hawkish Chinese state media spokesman The Global Times, suggested that Lai was unlikely to receive any bail and would face “heavy fines”.
