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Search One Media|The police first filed a warrant to search news materials with the National Security Act. Barrister: In connection with the charge

2021-06-20T17:18:09.100Z


Following August last year, the police today (17th) raided the "Apple Daily" building in Tseung Kwan O Industrial Estate. The scope of this court warrant, including news materials, was larger than the previous one. It was the police.


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Written by: Wei Jingquan

2021-06-17 16:19

Last update date: 2021-06-17 16:19

Following August last year, the police today (17th) raided the "Apple Daily" building in Tseung Kwan O Industrial Estate. The scope of the court warrant this time, including news materials, is larger than the previous time. It is the national security of the police. For the first time, the Department used the "National Security Law" to apply for a warrant to search news materials.

It can be seen from news fragments that the police used the computer of the "Apple Daily" editorial department during the raid this morning; a reporter from the newspaper also said that the office computer was taken away by the police.

When the police searched the "Apple Daily" building last year, the police also had access to news materials. After that, the "Apple Daily" filed a request for the police to return the information. The court also ordered that if the police seized the relevant items, they need to return it.

However, this injunction order is "more spicy" than last time, and the warrant has allowed the police to search news materials.

A practicing barrister stated that the scope of the warrant search mainly depends on the charge involved. It is estimated that since this case is related to dozens of news articles, the scope of the search has been extended to news materials.

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On August 10 last year, the police arrested Li Zhiying, the founder of Next Media, and his two sons on suspicion of anti-"National Security Law"; and four other senior officials of Next Media were arrested for conspiracy to defraud.

The police said that day they entered and searched the "Apple Daily" building under a court warrant to investigate crimes endangering national security.

Senior Superintendent Li Guihua of the National Security Agency said at the time that some departments would not search because they had news materials.

However, the live broadcast at that time showed that there were police officers looking through the documents of the editing department.

According to reports, the warrant for that day was applied for by the Commercial Crime Investigation Division. It mentioned that some documents and books in the "Apple Daily" building were suspected to be valuable for investigating the "National Security Law" and "conspiracy to commit fraud."

The scope of the warrant includes 19 companies related to Apple Daily. The police can search and take over their business operation records, accounting and personnel documents, but no news materials are listed.

Afterwards, Next Media, Apple Daily and other companies filed a complaint with the High Court, urging the police to return news materials and "legal professional confidentiality" documents. The court then ordered that if the items seized by the police fall into the above categories, they must be returned to Apple. Daily and other plaintiffs.

In addition, the plaintiff later asked the court to grant a temporary injunction to prohibit the police from accessing the information involved in the case, but the judge recently rejected his application.

Senior Superintendent Li Guihua of the National Security Division of the Police said that 4 men and 1 woman were arrested in action this morning on suspicion of conspiring to collude with foreign countries or foreign forces to endanger national security.

(Photo by Deng Yongzhong)

The police search of news materials last year caused controversy.

In today’s search operation, the Police Force is the same as last time, stating that the court will execute the court warrant in accordance with Article 43(1) of the National Security Law and Schedule 1 of the Implementation Rules.

However, unlike last time, the police emphasized the search warrant and granted the power to search news materials.

According to the photos at the scene, the police used multiple computers of the editorial department to search the materials and articles and took away many documents.

This is the first time that the police applied for a warrant to search news materials directly on the grounds that they were involved in violation of the National Security Law.

Practicing barrister Lu Weixiong said that whether the scope of the warrant includes news materials depends on the charge involved.

He said that according to the police, the case involved the content of news articles. There may be manuscripts in the news materials, or the process of reviewing and approving the content, which would be related to the case.

He pointed out that the scope of the warrant was related to the content of the crime.

In addition, the government has repeatedly stated that the National Security Law has no retrospective effect. However, Li Guihua pointed out today that there have been more than 30 articles calling for foreign sanctions on Hong Kong and the People's Republic of China since 2019. However, the National Security Law has not yet been enacted in 2019.

Lu Weixiong said that investigations are not equivalent to being used as evidence. The crimes may have been committed in 2019 or need to be investigated. However, whether relevant information can be used as evidence in court afterwards is a question that needs to be understood later.

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Source: hk1

All news articles on 2021-06-20

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