Concrete illustration of the controversial security law. The Hong Kong magnate Jimmy Lai was arrested Monday and his press group raided in the name of this text, marking a new stage in the muscular takeover of the former British colony by Beijing.
The wealthy septuagenarian is the boss of Next Media, which includes the Apple Daily and the magazine Next, two titles openly pro-democracy and critics of Beijing. He was arrested at his home around 7 am (midnight in Paris), said Mark Simon, one of his close associates, specifying that other members of his press group had also been arrested.
Jimmy Lai, who is a UK citizen, is handcuffed and and escorted to a van. Arrested for alleged foreign collusion, he is so far the highest-profile arrested after national security law was inserted by Beijing. Police says he is also arrested for committing fraud. #HongKongProtests pic.twitter.com/Vi4okmLhUv
- Ezra Cheung (@ezracheungtoto) August 10, 2020In a statement, police said seven arrests on suspicion of collusion with foreign forces - one of the offenses covered by the National Security Law which was imposed in late June by Beijing - and fraud.
A text denounced as being "liberticide"
Seen as Beijing's response to the months of pro-democracy protests that rocked the former British colony in 2019, the law gives authorities new powers to crack down on four types of crimes against state security: subversion, separatism , terrorism and collusion with outside forces.
A number of pro-democracy activists denounce a liberticidal text which puts an end to the principle "One country, two systems" which had governed the handover in 1997 and theoretically guarantee until 2047 to Hong Kong people freedoms unknown in the rest of China.
At the end of the morning, dozens of police arrived at the headquarters of Jimmy Lai's press group, in an industrial area in the Lohas Park district (south-east). Apple Daily reporters broadcast footage of the search live on Facebook. In the footage, the editor of the daily Law Wai-kwong appears asking the police for their warrant. "Tell your colleagues not to touch anything until our lawyers check the warrant," their intimate Jimmy Law.
Beijing hate
Police officers ordered reporters to stand up and line up for identity checks, as others searched the newsroom. And Jimmy Lai was brought to the scene. Mark Simon said on Twitter that searches had also taken place at the home of the magnate and that of his son.
Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai was arrested over allegations of collusion with foreign forces as scores of police searched the offices of his Apple Daily newspaper https://t.co/fvcWbK7C0Y pic.twitter.com/9mKWkjrQs5
- Reuters (@Reuters) August 10, 2020For many Hong Kongers committed to the pro-democracy movement, Jimmy Lai is a hero, a tabloid boss who has built his fortune alone, and the only Hong Kong press boss who stands up to the Chinese central power.
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Few of the Hong Kong people draw such hatred from Beijing as Jimmy Lai, whom the Chinese state media regularly qualify as a "traitor" by accusing him of being the instigator of the 2019 protest. The accusations of collusion with a foreign power redoubled last year, when Jimmy Lai met with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Vice President Mike Pence.
Archetype of the self-made man
Two weeks before the security law was imposed on Hong Kong, Jimmy Lai said in an interview that 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." He brushed aside accusations of collusion, explaining that Hong Kong people had the right to meet foreign politicians.
Jimmy Lai is the archetype of the self-made man. He landed illegally in Hong Kong with his family at the age of 12, aboard a boat from Canton. He started working as a small hand in a textile factory, then, in his early thirties, learned English and opened his own textile business. 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 ”.
In his interview 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.
The Chinese and Hong Kong authorities have claimed that this controversial text would have no impact on freedoms in the semi-autonomous territory and only targeted a minority of people. The weeks following its adoption, however, confirmed a brutal tension in Hong Kong, with increased repression against members of the democracy movement.
