Media tycoon Jimmy Lai under threat once more -- and with him, Hong Kong's (press) freedoms

 

Apple Daily has continued to stand with 

Hong Kong into October...

 

...and Hong Kongers have continued to stand with,

and support, Apple Daily and Jimmy Lai

 

The Hong Kong police have been at it again.  Not content with having arrested media tycoon Jimmy Lai (on more than one occasion already) and raided the offices of his Next Digital media company (back on August 10th, the day of his most recent arrest), they raided his office (again) earlier today, ahead of Lai's appearance in court in relation to a case involving him and other pro-democracy activists having been at Victoria Park for the June 4th vigil declared illegal this year by the authorities. 

 

When speaking to reporters this afternoon, Hong Kong's most notable pro-democracy billionaire declared that the police "took away everything".  Lai also told the assembled press that: "It seems that they are looking for every possible reason to charge me… The police didn’t even wait for the lawyer to come before they took things away, so that’s not rule of law." 

 

The way Lai's aide (and Next Digital executive), Mark Simon, sees it: "The goal of this raid [was] harassment and to find a way to shut down Mr. Lai’s private businesses".  And since it is "publicly known" that the tycoon had been infusing funds from his private businesses into his media company's flagship newspaper to keep it afloat, it can be surmized that “the police are looking to cut off the funding for Apple Daily".           

 

In recent months, advertising revenues along with sales of Hong Kong's only pro-democracy Chinese language newspaper look to have shot up.  Even so, there is a real danger that it might not be shut down at some point in the not so distant future -- thanks in no small part to the authorities actively clamping down on dissent, particularly since China imposed a security law on Hong Kong this past June 30th.  

 

In some ways, it can seem downright miraculous that Apple Daily has been continuing to not only operate but also publish some pretty fiery opinions.  Take, as an example, today's piece asserting that the Hong Kong government in its current state bears a striking resemblance to Vichy France.  And I certainly could see the authorities on both sides of the Hong Kong-Mainland China border taking umbrage with an article yesterday entitled Xi Jinping coughs and coughs at Shenzhen event as Carrie Lam stays away from the VIPs!

 

It's not for nothing, then, that a "yellow" friend of mine told me that her personal red line that, if crossed, will mean it's time for her to leave Hong Kong is if Apple Daily ceases to be published.  In turn, I told her of my using the Falun Gong's presence in Hong Kong as the canary in the coalmine and also my worries that the day is coming soon when Google, Facebook, Twitter and the like will cease to be accessible in Hong Kong (like they have been for years already over on Mainland China).  

 

So it's actually a bit of a relief for me to learn that pro-democrat Charles Mok managed to prevail over Junius Ho and hold on to the chairmanship of the Legislative Council's IT panel today (as reported by Citizen News' Alvin Lum on his Twitter page -- which Blogger inexplicably won't allow me to link to -- today).  And yes, I know that the remaining pro-democrats in the Legislative Council face an uphill battle to prevent the pro-Beijing camp from getting its way with pretty much everything but I still believe that they still are capable of doing some good there.