Hong Kong police arrest former Apple Daily journalist at airport: Local media

Hong Kong police arrested a former senior journalist with the Apple Daily newspaper on the worldwide airport on Sunday night time on a suspected nationwide safety cost as he tried to depart town, in keeping with native media experiences.
Fung Wai-kong can be the seventh staffer on the pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper to be arrested on nationwide safety grounds in latest weeks. He was an editor and columnist on the now-closed paper, native media reported.

The Hong Kong police mentioned in an announcement {that a} 57-year-old man had been arrested on the airport for “conspiring to collude with foreign countries or foreign forces to endanger national security”.
They added that he had been detained and investigations had been persevering with.

Apple Daily, a well-liked tabloid, was pressured to fold following a raid by a number of hundred police on its headquarters on June 17 and the freezing of key property and financial institution accounts. It printed its final version final Thursday.
Authorities say dozens of the paper’s articles might have violated a China-imposed nationwide safety legislation, the primary occasion of authorities taking purpose at media experiences below the laws. Critics of the legislation, launched final June, say it has been used to stifle dissent and erode basic freedoms within the former British colony that returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
Some of the critics additionally say the closure of Apple Daily, which mixes pro-democracy views with movie star gossip and investigations of these in energy, marks the tip of an period for media freedom within the metropolis.
The Hong Kong Journalists’ Association, reacting to experiences of the airport arrest, condemned the police for concentrating on journalists once more, and requested them to elucidate the incident.