This is a new step in the muscular recovery of Hong Kong. And Beijing, under cover of the controversial security law, has this time decided to attack an emblematic figure of the pro-democracy movement. Hong Kong magnate Jimmy Lai was arrested on Monday and his press group searched.
The curtain is closing rapidly on what remains of Hong Kong's freedoms. Police arrested 7 this morning: @JimmyLaiApple, his two sons, and 4 top execs at @appledaily_hk. Over 200 police / detectives stormed Apple Daily (HK's largest opposition news) headquarter. #FreeJimmy #FreeHK pic.twitter.com/6oqprstVNp
- Samuel Chu 朱 牧民 (@samuelmchu) August 10, 2020Seven arrests
It must be said that the extremely wealthy businessman irritates the Chinese authorities the most. Boss of Next Media, which includes the Apple Daily and the magazine Next, he built his fortune on his own and is above all the only Hong Kong press leader who stands up to the central power in Beijing by criticizing him regularly. For that, the septuagenarian knew he was on borrowed time. Rightly so since the police came to arrest him at his home around 7 am, explained Mark Simon, one of his close associates, specifying that other members of his press group had also been arrested. For their part, the police reported seven arrests on suspicion of collusion with foreign forces and fraud.
At the end of the morning, dozens of police arrived at the headquarters of the press group. Apple Daily reporters broadcast footage of the search live on Facebook. On these, the editor of the daily Law Wai-kwong appears asking the police for their warrant. But nothing worked. Police officers ordered reporters to stand up and line up for identity checks, as others searched the newsroom in front of Jimmy Lai who was brought to the scene.
A "traitor" for the state media
Few of the Hong Kong people draw such hatred from Beijing as Jimmy Lai. Chinese state media regularly call him a "traitor", accusing him of instigating the 2019 protest. The accusations of collusion with a foreign power redoubled last year, when he met the secretary. of US State Mike Pompeo and Vice President Mike Pence. Two weeks before the security law was imposed on Hong Kong, Jimmy Lai said he was "ready" to go to jail. “If necessary, I will be able to read books that I have not read,” he said. "The only thing I can do is stay positive."
It was the suppression of the Tiananmen uprising in 1989 that transformed his political vision and in 1990 he founded Next Media. "As long as I am alive, Next Media will not change", confided a few years ago this father of six children. “I don't want my children, my grandchildren, to think that their father and grandfather was rich, but that he was an asshole. I can't count on my money to be happy ”. At the end of June, he explained that the security law would "spell the end of Hong Kong" and said he feared that the authorities would prosecute his journalists. His fears are now well founded.
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