Holding up a beautiful apple on a train ride in Japan
While attending the trial of the Democracy 15 less than two weeks ago, a friend and I chatted during one of the court breaks about the national security law arrests and wondered how come it had yet to be applied to big, "obvious" names. Well, it turns out that we didn't have to wait all that long for the authorities to go ahead and do just this: with the most (only?) pro-democracy tycoon in Hong Kong, Jimmy Lai, having been arrested for alleged foreign collusion this morning.
More than, incidentally, the media tycoon is a member of the Democracy 15 (along with the likes of Martin Lee, Margaret Ng, "Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung, Figo Chan and Lee Cheuk-yan). Lai also was one of the 25 pro-democracy figures arrested last Thursday for "knowingly taking part" in the "illegal assembly" that was this year's June 4th candlelight vigil in Victoria Park.
As the minute and hours ticked by, Twitter reports appeared of six others having been arrested along with Jimmy Lai, and their including his two sons and senior management of his media company. Reports came too of Mark Simon, the aide who looked to have broke the news of his boss' arrest, additionally being wanted by the police. Put all this together and the sense is that the authorities are going after Lai's Apple Daily, the most (only?) major pro-democracy Chinese language media in Hong Kong, and want to shut it down.
As the day went on, there got to be a general sense of the freedom of the press being under serious attack in Hong Kong. This stems not just from seeing Apple Daily's offices being raided an operation that involved hundreds of police officers entering and searching it while Apple Daily staff livestreamed their own offices being raided and their boss being perpwalked through his own building (and, separately, the executive director of Next Digital, Apple Daily's parent company).
Rather, the police also unveiled new arrangements today that have them deciding who can have attend the press briefings and conferences they conduct and also appear to have their "particular" definition of "press conference" which doesn't allow room for a Q&A session! And the fact that the police chose to bar not only local outlets like Stand News -- and until they successfully protested, public broadcaster Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) -- but also international outlets such as Reuters, the Associated Press and Agence France-Presse (AFP) -- shows all the more how determined the authorities are to shackle what used to be -- but, alas, no longer is -- "Asia’s greatest, freest and most international city".
A further note on Jimmy Lai's two sons; neither of whom works for their father's company. Journalist Melissa Chan was moved to suggest the following: "Jimmy Lai has shown he's willing to give up his wealth, his freedom, for his convictions. So they go after the only thing that might break him: his children." In her Twitter thread on this subject, she went on to state that: "Hong Kong (I hope) isn’t there yet, but they’ve been cases where Beijing would torture the son or daughter in the next jail cell so the activist could hear, to break them. There is no more apt word to describe this as anything but evil."
In reaction to what amounts to an attack by the authorities on Apple Daily, Hong Kongers did something which has astounded onlookers: they went and bought shares of Next Media to show their support of Jimmy Lai and his company! And I think it's safe to say that every copy of Apple Daily will be sold out tomorrow (as it has today) -- and yes, the newspaper will continue to be published (even while its boss in custody). How's that for defiance?
At the same time, of course we in Hong Kong know that the attacks on our freedoms will continue. Already today, more security law arrests took place. Hours after those of Jimmy Lai and his associates, there followed those of Wilson Li, a freelance journalist with Britain’s ITN and an ex-member of the now-disbanded student group Scholarism, along with acitivist Andy Li. Then came the arrest of Agnes Chow: just 23 years of age and now possibly facing life imprisonment.
Amidst all this, writer Kong Tsung-gan effectively being hounded out of Hong Kong will not capture as much attention as it deserves. But I think the controversy that has recently swirled around him (whose Tweets I have found invaluable) (and also Hong Kong Hermit), which has prompted a number of people to point out that Hong Kong identity is not restricted to ethnic Chinese (and, for that matter, just those ethnic Chinese who were born in Hong Kong -- otherwise the likes of Nathan Law and Edward Leung would not be Hong Kongers too), may make lots of people realize that we are all Hong Kong(ers) now (a sentiment I've now seen voiced in the New York Times and Hindustan Times in recent weeks as well as by Hong Kong Watch's Benedict Rogers, among others).
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