This week will almost certainly see the end of Apple Daily, a highly popular tabloid newspaper in Hong Kong. This newspaper is dying not because of finances but because the Chinese Communist Party is scared of impure words. Beijing simply cannot handle what the newspaper’s journalists write. (Full disclosure: I wrote a weekly Apple Daily column.)
Acting under China’s national security law, which is itself a breach of Beijing’s commitments under the Sino-British joint declaration, Hong Kong police last week arrested a number of senior Apple Daily editors. This follows the seizure of the newspaper’s assets and the kangaroo conviction of its founder, Jimmy Lai. By gutting Apple Daily’s leadership with criminal sanctions and effectively emptying its bank accounts, Beijing has made it impossible for the publication to operate.
