Apple Daily editorial writer arrested at Hong Kong airport

Hong Kong, June 28 (ANI): Fung Wai-kong, a senior editorial writer of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily was arrested at the city airport on Sunday on charges of collusion, local media reported.

Apple Daily was last week forced to shut down after the city authorities froze its assets and arrested five executives under the draconian National Security Law.

Wai-kong’s arrest comes a few days after police arrested a columnist of now-defunct newspaper for allegedly “conspiring to collude with foreign countries or foreign forces to endanger national security”, Axios reported.

The Hong Kong authorities have increasingly been relying on the China-backed law, which provides them broad power to limit people’s political freedom and to arrest journalists at the independent news outlet.

Last week, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said it will honour Jimmy Lai, the imprisoned founder of Hong Kong’s Next Digital media company and Apple Daily newspaper, with the 2021 Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award.

The award is presented annually by CPJ’s board of directors to recognize extraordinary and sustained commitment to press freedom.

“Jimmy Lai is not just a champion of a free press, he is a press freedom warrior. He fights for the right of his Apple News organization to publish freely, even as China and its backers in Hong Kong use every tool to quash them,” said Kathleen Carroll, chair of CPJ’s board. (ANI)