3 years ago
The Hong Kong pro-democracy figure and media mogul Jimmy Lai received a hero’s welcome as he returned to his newspaper after being arrested on allegations of foreign collusion, while Chinese state media labelled him a “genuine traitor”.
Lai, his sons, senior executives from his Next Digital media company and others including the activist Agnes Chow were detained under Beijing’s national security law on Monday. Hundreds of police officers also raided the offices and newsroom of Apple Daily, the popular tabloid Lai founded, in a move decried as an assault on press freedom.
Most of the 10 arrested were released on bail late on Tuesday night. Lai’s return to Apple Daily on Wednesday was livestreamed by staff, who lined the building’s stairwell which days earlier had been full of uniformed police officers. They cheered and applauded as he entered and walked through the newsroom to his office, stopping to hug his chief executive officer, Cheung Kim-hung, who was also arrested, and joking that it was lucky he had not been sent to the mainland.
“I’m very touched, we will fight on,” Lai said. “We have the support of the Hong Kong people. We can’t let them down.” It was becoming increasingly difficult to run media in Hong Kong, but they must continue, he said.
