AN APPLE A DAY ANNOYS THE POLICE: THE STRANGE AND TERRIBLE SAGA OF JIMMY LAI
ITEM: The Great Hong Kong National Security crackdown continues, with the police arresting ten (10) people for “collusion with foreign forces”. Notably, one of them was Jimmy Lai, founder of Next Media and publisher of Apple Daily ( the last openly pro-democracy newspaper in HK), and someone who has been on the Beijing hit list for a very long time.
So here’s some bloggery about that:
1. This is essentially about petty revenge. The HK govt, Beijing and the police hate Lai, and have wanted to punish him for a very long time. Lai has always been a media rabble-rouser, both in HK and Taiwan, and the CCP has always been a favorite target of his. He’s already been arrested for unlawful assembly and related charges, but that’s not enough for BJ - they want him (and people like him) in jail for the rest of his life.
2. No one knows what “collusion with foreign forces” means in this case - and it’s not certain we’ll ever find out - but we do know that Beijing’s definition of such things tends to be very loose. For example, last month the police arrested four kids on NSL charges of secession - where in this case the act of “secession” was literally sharing a pro-independence article on Facebook.
3. With people now convinced that this spells the death of press freedom in HK, at least one Beijing official is trying to spin this by claiming Apple Daily is not a newspaper but a political organization that just happens to print newspapers. So it doesn’t count as curbing press freedom, see?
In other words, you’re a media organization until Beijing decides you’re not a media organization but a rebel political group.
4. Also, the reassurances about press freedom aren’t that convincing when remembering the police didn’t just arrest Lai - they sent a hundred cops to raid the Apple Daily office for “evidence” - and then arbitrarily banned certain media from the press briefing.
The police made an attempt to explain it the following day:
“It depends on the past performance of those media - whether they behaved in a way that the police deemed unprofessional,” the police chief said. “Criteria include whether their reporting is objective, whether they have participated in actions other than reporting, whether they would obstruct officers from performing their duty or if they would pose danger to officers.”
Which isn’t helpful, but it does illustrate a few things: (1) Police chief Chris Tang has a list of media he does not like and will not cooperate with, (2) he clearly thinks press freedom should be limited to news outlets he personally deems worthy, and (3) if the govt ever decides to implement an accreditation system for journalists (which the police have openly advocated for some time), Tang already has a wish list of who he wants rejected.
This is, after all, the same police chief who is obsessed with the idea that some reporters who show up to cover the police are not actual reporters but protesters disguised as reporters. Or something. I have no idea what he thinks these clandestine fake journalists (if they exist, and he’s never proven that they do) are up to. I suspect he doesn’t either because he’s just making it up to justify police violence against anyone wearing a press vest.
5. It’s also worth remembering the broader context in which this happened. Ever since the NSL was passed, press freedom in HK has been eroding one step at a time.
Rachel Cheung has compiled a list here. But the pattern is clear: the HK govt is working make it very difficult for foreign journalists to work here, and attempting to establish norms in which media is forced to self-censor or stick to stenography if they want to avoid an NSL rap. Loyalist papers like Ta Kung Pao will get access and exclusives because they can be counted on to toe the govt line, and even serve as cheerleader.
For everyone else, the Apple Daily raid and selective came across as theatre that was intended to send a clear message to all other media outlets: watch what you write, or you may be next.
That’s certainly how the local Foreign Correspondents Club is taking it. And, you know, they’re not wrong.
6. Still, it’s not all doom and gloom. For one thing, Apple Daily wasn’t shut down. It’s still in operation. Indeed, it went to press the very next day with a very defiant headline vowing to fight on despite govt oppression and an expanded print run of 550,000 copies (as opposed to the usual daily run of around 70,000 copies).
Result: as far as I know they sold every copy. And the company’s stock price jumped over 700% in two days.
Bet that annoyed the govt no end.
FULL DISCLOSURE: I bought two copies (see photo, above). Which technically means I could be arrested for helping to fund collusion, should the police or Beijing decide to interpret it that way. But then they’d have to arrest 550,000 people, so it’s probably not worth the effort.
Meanwhile, a restaurant owned by one of Lai’s sons - who was also arrested as part of the same sweep - did awesome business yesterday.
Because this is how we protest in HK now. We can’t march, and even holding up blank signs in a shopping mall is illegal now - but we can find other ways to make our feelings known.
How do you like them apples,
This is dF
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