The Hong Kong authorities sacrificed the National Security Law, freezing the shares and personal assets of ‘Next Media’ group, ‘Apple Daily’ founder, democrat Lai Chi-ying Next Media. This move seems to cut off the financial resources of ‘Apple’, but the group’s chief executive said that the freezing incident is completely unrelated to the One Media Group account, the group and ‘Apple Daily’ operations and funds are in no way affected by the financial.
The Security Bureau, which was set up in Hong Kong in accordance with the ‘Hong Kong version of the National Security Law’ imposed by Beijing last June, ordered Friday that the shares and personal assets of Next Media Group be frozen.
The self-taught, 73-year-old Lai Chi-ying has angered Beijing with his group’s support for the anti-China campaign that will erupt in 2019. His ‘Apple Daily’ insists on reporting the truth and has consistently supported the months-long pro-democracy movement during Hong Kong’s most turbulent times.
Lai Chi-ying was arrested a few weeks ago for allegedly violating the ‘Hong Kong version of the National Security Law’ imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing, which creates four categories of crimes: secession, subversion of state power, terrorist activities, and collusion with foreign countries or forces outside the country to endanger national security, and is said to be specifically designed to crack down on Hong Kong’s democratic forces. Hong Kong’s pro-democracy camp believes that the law fundamentally subverts the “one country, two systems” promised by the Beijing regime to the people of Hong Kong, which has maintained the capitalist system for 50 years.
Born in mainland China, Li Zhiying made his way to Hong Kong at the age of 12 and, through his personal efforts, went from being a penniless man to a billionaire. He has been accused by authorities of “colluding with foreign forces” and supporting Western sanctions against senior Chinese and Hong Kong officials for undermining Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems.
In April, authorities sentenced him to 14 months in prison for organizing and participating in a pan-democratic march in August 2019. Since the announcement of the Hong Kong version of the national security law, numerous pro-democracy leaders in Hong Kong have been arrested, imprisoned or fled to foreign countries.
Beijing has recently launched a “patriots rule Hong Kong” campaign with the goal of controlling all aspects of eligibility to run for the Legislative Council and reducing pro-democracy participation to a minimum.
One of the main reasons why Lai Chi-ying has become a key target of Beijing’s crackdown is that his media, whose main objective is to report the truth, are clearly different from their Hong Kong counterparts, and under pressure from Beijing, the majority of Hong Kong media have adopted a very cautious attitude.
‘Apple Daily’ published a statement on May 14 stating that the freeze would not affect the normal operations of Next Media Group and ‘Apple’. Apple Daily reported on Friday that “Apple” launched the “9:30 Apple News Report”, Monday to Sunday, every night at 9:30 sharp to send you half an hour of live HD TV news, by professional anchors with a relaxed, close to the ground reporting approach, for you to brief the daily events, through the editorial independence, present some other places may not see the news picture, restore the truth. ”
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