Today, four Apple Daily journalists were denied bail.

Newsroom (07/22/2021 15:34, Gaudium Press) The persecution of the press continues in Hong Kong, less and less in its “own system” and more and more in the more authentic Chinese communist system. It is as if the authorities of this “special administrative region” want to anticipate the very wishes of the Chinese “politburo”.

After the arrest of Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai, its editor Cheung Kim-hung, and editor-in-chief Ryan Law, there was also the arrest of associate editor Chan Pui-man, English-language website editor Fung Wai-kong, columnist Yeung Ching-Kei, and former editor-in-chief Lam Man-Chung, the latter arrested yesterday. These four key men of the company were denied bail today and will have to await their prison trial, which will begin in September. They are accused of conspiring with foreign forces to impose sanctions on Hong Kong and China.

Apple Daily closed on June 24 amid the persecution.

In April of this year, Gaudium Press reported the 12-month prison sentence of Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai, a Catholic and tycoon who made his fortune in the garment industry. He is the founder of Next Digital, and publisher of Apple Daily, a widely read newspaper critical of the Hong Kong authorities and mainland Communists. Lai was one of the promoters of the pro-democracy protests on the island in 2019.

Lai will now learn that four other of his advisors were also arrested.

More media censored

But of course Apple Daily is not the only media under attack in Hong Kong.

Asia News reports that in a circular letter issued on July 20, the management of the city’s public television station, RTHK, has banned its journalists from using terms it considers “inappropriate” such as “Taiwanese president or government.” Such expressions are considered contrary to the “one-China principle” – invoked by the Communist central government in its relations with Taiwan, an island that the Communists consider a mere “rebel” province.

Also today, the National Security Police arrested five trade unionists accused of circulating “seditious” children’s books. The Hong Kong General Union of Speech Therapists published a series of short stories entitled “Sheep Village Guardian” as a means to help parents and teachers explain to children aged five to eight “the events of 2019 in Hong Kong”; events that triggered the draconian repressive security measure ordered by Beijing in June 2020.

Compiled by Gustavo Kralj