08-11-2020 , 12:46 AM
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articl...es-muscles Hong Kong Police Raid on Newspaper Filmed in Real Time as China Flexes Muscles
By Reuters, Wire Service ContentAug. 10, 2020 BY JAMES POMFRET
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Six weeks after China imposed sweeping national security laws on Hong Kong, police moved in on media tycoon Jimmy Lai, one of the most outspoken critics of Beijing in the city.
Lai, 71, was whisked away from his home early on Monday morning by national security police, part of a citywide operation that also saw eight other men arrested, including several of his senior executives.
Then, just before 10 a.m., hundreds of police descended on Lai's corporate Next Digital <0282.HK> headquarters, where his flagship Apple Daily is produced and published.
Staffers said they asked police what legal grounds they had for entering. But these questions were largely ignored as more than 200 police streamed in, according to a live feed of the unfolding drama.
Apple Daily's Editor-in-Chief Ryan Law, who was helping film and comment on the Facebook live feed, could be seen rushing about the building as he tried to report on events breaking in his own newsroom.
"This is, I believe, the first time in Hong Kong that police have initiated a mass search on a media outlet like this," he said, panting, as he scaled a back staircase with a colleague to get around the mass of police officers.
By Reuters, Wire Service ContentAug. 10, 2020 BY JAMES POMFRET
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Six weeks after China imposed sweeping national security laws on Hong Kong, police moved in on media tycoon Jimmy Lai, one of the most outspoken critics of Beijing in the city.
Lai, 71, was whisked away from his home early on Monday morning by national security police, part of a citywide operation that also saw eight other men arrested, including several of his senior executives.
Then, just before 10 a.m., hundreds of police descended on Lai's corporate Next Digital <0282.HK> headquarters, where his flagship Apple Daily is produced and published.
Staffers said they asked police what legal grounds they had for entering. But these questions were largely ignored as more than 200 police streamed in, according to a live feed of the unfolding drama.
Apple Daily's Editor-in-Chief Ryan Law, who was helping film and comment on the Facebook live feed, could be seen rushing about the building as he tried to report on events breaking in his own newsroom.
"This is, I believe, the first time in Hong Kong that police have initiated a mass search on a media outlet like this," he said, panting, as he scaled a back staircase with a colleague to get around the mass of police officers.
