In April, the 70th month since Beijing imposed the national security law, the Hong Kong government applied to the court to seize assets belonging to Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence.
On National Education Day, a top Chinese official delivered a warning about those who “politicised” the deadly Tai Po fire and tried to “stir up chaos” in the city.
The Hong Kong government filed an application with the High Court on April 2 to seize “offence-related” properties owned by jailed pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai on national security grounds.
In a statement issued the same day, the government mentioned Lai’s earlier convictions under the Beijing-imposed national security law. It said the High Court had found that he was the “mastermind and driving force behind the case, consciously using Apple Daily and his personal influence” to undermine local and Beijing authorities.
In a writ dated April 2, the secretary for justice listed HK$127 million in assets to be “forfeited” to the authorities.
The assets include credit balances in bank accounts belonging to or linked to the Apple Daily founder.
Fifteen bank accounts under Lai’s name – 10 with HSBC, two with Hang Seng Bank and three with Shanghai Commercial and Savings Bank – have over HK$32 million.
The government is also seeking to seize bank accounts belonging to 17 companies linked to Lai. It is also demanding that Lai give up shares in 17 companies, some of which overlap with the 17 firms whose assets the government is seeking to seize.
Among the companies whose assets and shares the government wants to seize are Dico Consultants Ltd, which has over HK$404,302 in its HSBC account, and Lai’s Hotel Properties Ltd, which has over HK$3.1 million in its four HSBC accounts.
Lai has been summoned to the High Court on July 8 to hear the government’s application. The case will be presided over by Esther Toh, one of the three judges who heard his national security trial.
The move to seize Lai’s assets came after the government designated three companies linked to Lai’s now-defunct Apple Daily tabloid “prohibited organisations” in late March and removed them from the corporate registry. Police cordoned off the Apple Daily building in Tseung Kwan O a day later.
The three firms were tried and convicted alongside the Apple Daily founder in his high-profile national security case. Lai was sentenced to 20 years behind bars in early February, while the companies were each fined over HK$3 million.
A Hong Kong political commentator charged with disclosing details of a national security investigation appeared at the District Court on April 28.
Wong Kwok-ngon, known by his pen name Wong On-yin, has been detained since his arrest in December for allegedly divulging in a YouTube video details of enquiries made by police during a national security investigation.
Judge Stanley Chan said the pre-trial review would take place behind closed doors on August 11, and the trial would begin on October 9.
Wong’s offence falls under the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, a homegrown security law known as Article 23. It was added to the ordinance in May as part of subsidiary legislation, and Wong is the first to be charged under the new law.
He is also charged with sedition over videos posted on YouTube between January 3 and December 6 last year. He plans to plead not guilty to both charges.
The defendant, who continues to represent himself, told the court he had dropped his legal aid application.
Asked by the judge whether he had legal knowledge for self-defence, Wong said he had “three law degrees” and was confident of handling the case.
Secretary for Environment and Ecology Tse Chin-wan said in early April that all Hong Kong restaurant licences would include national security clauses from September.
Tse made the remarks on April 7, nearly a year after the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) introduced the provisions for restaurant licence renewals in May.
“With restaurants renewing their licences gradually, we expect that by September this year, all restaurant licences will contain the clauses,” Tse told reporters, according to RTHK.
A Hong Kong man was jailed for a year under the city’s homegrown national security law after pleading guilty to making seditious remarks on Facebook, including comments supporting Hong Kong’s and Taiwan’s independence.
Raymond Chong pleaded guilty before national security judge Victor So at West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts on April 14 to one count of knowingly publishing publications with a seditious intention – an offence under the city’s local security law, also known as Article 23.
The magistrate handed Chong, a retiree in his early 60s, an 18-month sentence but discounted it by six months after considering his guilty plea.
Chong was accused of making 53 seditious social media posts between March 2024 and November 2025, local media reported.
The posts had wording such as “dissolving the Chinese Communist Party is the most important thing” and “Hong Kong independence is within sight.”
The defendant posted on a public Facebook page called “Holy Raymond,” which features the Chinese phrase “Heaven will destroy the Chinese Communist Party, God bless Hong Kong” as its profile picture.
During mitigation ahead of sentencing, his lawyer argued that Chong was a Falun Gong believer who had come to hate the Chinese Communist Party because of false information that the CCP engaged in live organ harvesting.
China’s top official in charge of Hong Kong affairs warned of some people who “politicised” the deadly Tai Po fire and tried to use the disaster to “stir up chaos” in Hong Kong.
Xia Baolong, director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office, delivered his remarks on April 15 via a recorded video shown at a National Security Education Day ceremony.
In his speech, Xia mentioned the massive fire that broke out at Wang Fuk Court, a government-subsidised housing estate in Tai Po, on November 26, killing 168 people.
“After the Tai Po fire, some malicious people politicised the tragedy, attempting to use the disaster as a means to disrupt Hong Kong,” Xia said in Mandarin, without giving further details.
“Once again, it reminds us that along Hong Kong’s path toward prosperity under good governance, there will be various risks and challenges.”
Speaking at the same event, Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee also warned that some people were “using the disaster to stir up chaos” and “to incite hatred” in Hong Kong.
“Only through the government’s swift action and decisive law enforcement has the situation been able to return to normal,” Lee said in Mandarin.
A French journalist was denied entry to Hong Kong in November, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said in late April, accusing the city’s authorities of “weaponising visas” against foreign media workers.
Antoine Vedeilhe, who was shooting a documentary for French public broadcaster France Télévisions, was questioned upon arrival at Hong Kong International Airport on November 2 last year, RSF said in a statement on April 24.
He was detained for three hours before being deported without being given a reason, it added.
The press freedom NGO said Vedeilhe was the 13th foreign media worker who had been denied entry or a visa by the city’s authorities following Beijing’s imposition of the national security law in 2020.
“In the journalist’s view, his detention was a reprisal for his work on a documentary examining Beijing’s grip on Hong Kong,” RSF said.
Another cameraman for the documentary was able to enter the city, RSF said, but he was followed by “unidentified individuals that he suspects were Hong Kong’s national security police.”
“In the following days, there was a hacking attempt on Vedeilhe’s private email account and his sources in the documentary were harassed by the national security police,” the NGO said.
In an emailed reply to HKFP’s enquiries, the Hong Kong government said it “strongly condemns the smearing remarks and distorted narratives by” RSF.
As of April 1, a total of 394 people have been arrested for “cases involving suspected acts or activities that endanger national security” since Beijing’s national security law came into effect, according to the Security Bureau. That figure includes those arrested under Article 23 and for other offences.
Of the 208 people and five companies that have so far been charged, 180 people and four companies have been convicted or are awaiting sentencing.
In total, 100 people and four companies have been charged under Beijing’s national security law, with 79 persons and three companies convicted. Thirteen people have been charged under Article 23, 10 of whom have been convicted.
The Hong Kong government and legislature have condemned Reporters Without Borders (RSF) after the city was ranked low in the NGO’s annual press freedom index.
They also hit out after German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) awarded jailed media tycoon and Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai a press freedom prize.
In RSF’s 2026 global press freedom index, released on Thursday, Hong Kong was ranked 140th out of 180 countries and territories – the same position as last year. The press freedom NGO highlighted the 20-year sentence handed down to Lai, who was convicted last year under the security law.
On the same day, DW – which accepts German federal funding – presented its 12th Freedom of Speech Award to the imprisoned 78-year-old.
In response, the Hong Kong government issued a press release on Friday, saying it “strongly condemned the attempts by an anti-China organisation and foreign media to sugarcoat the criminal acts of national security offender [Jimmy] Lai Chee-ying and to slander, smear, as well as attack the HKSAR by releasing a so-called press freedom index and presenting a so-called ‘award’. Such despicable behaviours totally disregarded the rule of law and twisted the facts, which must be strongly condemned.”
It cited 156 days of public hearings and 2,220 pieces of evidence during Lai’s trial. “These are the testaments to the fact that Lai Chee-ying and other defendants were found guilty only after a fair trial,” it said.
“The suggestion that any persons or organisations with certain backgrounds should be immune from legal sanctions for their illegal acts and activities is tantamount to granting such persons privileges to break the law and is totally contrary to the spirit of the rule of law.”
Lai’s trial was overseen by security law judges selected by the city’s leader. He was denied his first choice of lawyer.
The statement added that Lai had “colluded with foreign forces to beg for sanctions and engaged in hostile activities,” with the court hearing that Lai had sought to invite sanctions upon the territory through his media platforms and appearances.
The press release named RSF, claiming that the NGO is funded by the US and EU and that its rankings lack credibility. The government also called RSF “a tool for anti-China forces.”
The same condemnation was echoed hours later by the Legislative Council (LegCo) Secretariat.
In a separate statement, the LegCo Secretariat said it “strongly condemned the release of a so-called press freedom index by a foreign media organisation and presentation of a so-called award to the national security offender Lai Chee-ying to sugarcoat his criminal acts, and smear the press freedom and rule of law” in Hong Kong.
“LegCo urges the international community to recognise the facts and immediately stop making any groundless, fact-distorting, misleading and malicious attacks against Hong Kong,” it added.
RSF’s Aleksandra Bielakowska – who was denied entry to the city in 2024 – responded to the Hong Kong authorities in a LinkedIn post on Saturday.
“To make it clear once again: defending journalism is not ‘anti-China’; it is pro–press freedom,” she said. “At RSF, we stand arm in arm with Hong Kong journalists. We will not be intimidated and we continue supporting all media in Hong Kong, with the hope that one day we will see positive change and that the city will return to its golden years as an exemplar and beacon of press freedom.”
At 140th place on RSF’s press freedom index, between Rwanda and Syria, Hong Kong remains in the “red zone” – meaning a “very serious” situation. In 2002, the city was in 18th place, and in 2019, it was at 73rd place.
But between 2021 and 2022, it fell from 80 to 148, after Apple Daily and other independent media outlets shuttered amid the onset of the security legislation.
Hong Kong has plummeted in international press freedom indices since the onset of the 2020 and 2024 security laws. Watchdogs cite the arrest and jailing of journalists, raids on newsrooms and the closure of around 10 media outlets including Apple Daily, Stand News and Citizen News. Over 1,000 journalists have lost their jobs, whilst many have emigrated. Meanwhile, the city’s government-funded broadcaster RTHK has adopted new editorial guidelines, purged its archives and axed news and satirical shows.
See also: Explainer: Hong Kong’s press freedom under the national security law
In 2022, Chief Executive John Lee said press freedom was “in the pocket” of Hongkongers but “nobody is above the law.” Although he has told the press to “tell a good Hong Kong story,” government departments have been reluctant to respond to story pitches.
Media tycoon honoured in absentia as critics decry his 20-year sentence under national security law
The jailed media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai has been awarded Deutsche Welle’s freedom of speech award for his contribution to Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement.
The German public broadcaster said on Thursday that Lai would be presented in absentia with the 12th iteration of the award on 23 June at the DW Global Media Forum in Bonn.
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© Photograph: Vincent Yu/AP
© Photograph: Vincent Yu/AP
© Photograph: Vincent Yu/AP
Hong Kong remains at 140th place on Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) global press freedom index of 180 countries and territories, with the NGO highlighting the 20-year sentence handed down to Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai earlier this year.
The press freedom watchdog released its annual index on Thursday, ahead of World Press Freedom Day on Sunday.
Hong Kong’s position is unchanged from last year. At 140th place, between Rwanda and Syria, the city also remains in the “red zone” – meaning a “very serious” situation.
It has tumbled down press freedom indices since Beijing imposed a national security law in Hong Kong in 2020, in the wake of the pro-democracy protests and unrest that began the summer before.
In 2019, it was at 73rd place. From 2021 to 2022, it fell from 80 to 148, after independent media outlets Apple Daily, Stand News and Citizen News shuttered under authorities’ pressure.
Hong Kong has ranked higher in subsequent years, though RSF has said this was mostly due to changing situations in other places. The city’s press freedom score has fallen consistently, from 41.64 in 2022 to 39.49 this year.
RSF said in a press release that press freedom was at a “25-year low” across the world, with the average score of all countries and territories hitting a record low.
See also: Explainer: The decline of Hong Kong’s press freedom under the national security law
The US fell seven places, and other countries in the Americas, including Ecuador and Peru, also dropped.
Meanwhile, Norway ranks No. 1 for the 10th straight year, followed by the Netherlands, Estonia, Denmark and Sweden.
In Asia, Taiwan is the highest-ranked place at 28. China placed 178th, just after Iran, with North Korea and Eritrea at the bottom of the list.
RSF’s Asia Pacific advocacy manager, Aleksandra Bielakowska, told HKFP on Wednesday that Hong Kong had seen a “systemic collapse” in its press freedoms.
The city ranked 18th in 2002, the first year the index was published, she said.
“Hong Kong used to be a stronghold of free press, not only regionally but globally,” Bielakowska said.
She said that in recent years, authorities have been pursuing different ways of dissuading the media from independent reporting, including denying visas to journalists or barring them from entering Hong Kong.
Reporters have also reported being followed by unknown individuals. Most recently, in April, media outlet InMedia said its journalists had received harassing text messages “in recent months” and suspected they were being stalked after work.
When the Hong Kong Journalists Association wrote to the Security Bureau about it, the bureau accused the association of making “groundless speculations” that law enforcement was following reporters.
Bielakowska said this was in line with the authorities’ trend of dismissing claims of harassment of reporters as “rumours.” She said there were “strong indications” that authorities were targeting reporters via “centralised operations.”
In a press release published on Thursday, RSF referred to the February jailing of pro-democracy media mogul Lai, the founder of now-defunct newspaper Apple Daily.
The watchdog wrote that “a draconian national security law has allowed the authorities to imprison independent publisher Jimmy Lai, who was recently sentenced to 20 years in prison.”
Lai’s sentence is the longest to be meted out under the national security law so far. He was found guilty in December of conspiring to collude with foreign forces and conspiring to publish seditious materials.
Six former Apple Daily employees were also jailed for up to 10 years, with judges saying they played “affirmative and extensive roles.”
In recent years, there have been reports of journalists being denied visas or entry to Hong Kong. The independent media sector has been targeted by tax audits, while reporters have said they believed they were being followed.
Authorities, however, have maintained that the city continues to enjoy a large degree of press freedom.
After Lai was sentenced, the government said in a statement that it condemned claims that Lai was the victim of “political prosecution.”
“The… case has nothing to do with freedom of the press at all. Over the years, the defendants were using journalism as a guise to commit acts that brought harm to our country and Hong Kong,” the government said.
The Hong Kong government is seeking to confiscate HK$127 million in assets belonging to pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai, following his conviction and jail term under the national security law.
Lai has been summoned to the High Court on July 8 to hear the government’s application. The case will be presided over by Esther Toh, one of the three judges who heard his national security trial.
In a writ submitted to the High Court earlier this month, the secretary for justice listed assets to be “forfeited” to the authorities.
The list includes credit balances in bank accounts belonging to or linked to the Apple Daily founder.
Fifteen bank accounts under Lai’s name – 10 with HSBC, two with Hang Seng Bank and three with Shanghai Commercial and Savings Bank – have over HK$32 million.
The government is also seeking to seize bank accounts belonging to 17 companies linked to Lai. It is also demanding that Lai give up shares in 17 companies, some of which overlap with the 17 firms whose assets the government is seeking to seize.
Among the companies whose assets and shares the government wants to seize are Dico Consultants Ltd, which has over HK$404,302 in its HSBC account, and Lai’s Hotel Properties Ltd, which has over HK$3.1 billion in its four HSBC accounts.
Dico Consultants was at the centre of Lai’s fraud case relating to an alleged lease violation. Lai was accused of allowing the company to occupy parts of Apple Daily’s headquarters in Tseung Kwan O, despite the newspaper premises being rented for printing and publishing.
Lai was jailed for five years and nine months in December 2022 after being found guilty of fraud, but the conviction was overturned by the Court of Appeal in February this year.
The government also applied to seize HK$10 million in bail money that Lai had given to the court in December 2020, before he was later denied bail and remanded.
The media mogul was jailed for 20 years in February after being found guilty of conspiring to collude with foreign forces and of sedition, both offences under the Beijing-imposed national security law.
The jail term is the longest handed down so far for a national security offence. His lawyers have said that Lai will not appeal.
US$68,844 (HK$539,268) has been bet on prediction market platform Polymarket as to whether jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai will be released by July.
The wager is among several other predictions relating to Hong Kong, China and Taiwan, though it is unclear if platforms like Polymarket and others are legal.
Hong Kong police were unable to give a definitive answer as to whether the betting markets, where users place money on the probability of an event, are permissible in the city, where most forms of gambling are outlawed.
As of Friday, Polymarket users had bet US$68,844 on whether Lai – who was sentenced to 20 years in prison on national security grounds in February – would be released by June 30. Only five per cent of users currently believe the Apple Daily founder will be freed, down from a high of 23.2 per cent on March 8.
Other China-related bets see users betting on when US President Donald Trump will visit China, with almost US$22 million worth of predictions placed. Millions of dollars have also been wagered on whether, and when, China may attack Taiwan.
Six-figure sums are also circulating around weather predictions, as users try to guess the highest temperature on given days in Hong Kong.
Competing platforms Pariflow and Kalshi are also hosting geopolitical bets on Chinese politics, such as the country’s unemployment rate.
It is unclear if prediction markets are illegal under Cap. 148 of the Gambling Ordinance. When asked by HKFP, a police spokesperson cited the legislation, which makes no mention of online prediction markets.
“The police will continue to adopt a four-pronged strategy – namely prevention, education, intelligence gathering, and enforcement – to combat all forms of illegal gambling,” a police spokesperson said on March 24. “The police will also conduct regular online patrols to monitor emerging market activities for any signs of illegal gambling. Upon discovery of illegality, the police will take decisive enforcement action.”
In the US, they are considered speculative futures markets, rather than gambling. Anonymous traders have made millions of dollars making last-minute bets on the Trump administration’s decisions on tariffs, Venezuela and Iran, prompting calls for more regulation to tackle suspected insider trading.
The Hong Kong Jockey Club has a government-sanctioned monopoly on gambling in Hong Kong. Only gambling on lotteries, basketball, horse racing and football is permitted.
A licence is required for any entity to operate, promote, or facilitate gambling in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong introduced new national security rules in March that empower police to demand that national security suspects surrender passwords to their devices. Meanwhile, an independent bookshop owner and his employees were arrested for allegedly selling seditious books.
The national security trial of two Tiananmen vigil activists continued, and the city’s largest teachers’ union officially dissolved.
The government introduced amendments to the “implementation rules” of the national security law that Beijing imposed in 2020.
Under the new rules, gazetted on March 23, police can require people under national security investigation to provide passwords or help decrypt their electronic devices.
Failure to do so can be punished by up to one year behind bars and a HK$100,000 fine. Providing a false or misleading statement is punishable by up to three years’ imprisonment and a fine of HK$500,000.
The new rules also empowered customs officers to freeze or confiscate assets relating to national security crimes or to forfeit “articles that have seditious intention.”
Such powers were previously restricted to the secretary for justice, the secretary for security, and the police force.
In an attempt to quell public concerns, security chief Chris Tang described claims that police could stop people on the street and demand their phone passwords as “false and misleading.”
Tang said in the Legislative Council (LegCo) on March 26 that with the new requirements in place, there was public concern that police would randomly demand that citizens on the street hand over mobile phone passwords.
The minister said that police must apply for a court warrant providing “national security reasons” before requesting people suspected of endangering national security to hand over mobile phone passwords.
Beijing summoned the top US diplomat in Hong Kong after the US Consulate General issued an alert over a new rule in the financial hub empowering police to demand that national security suspects surrender their passwords.
In a statement on February 28, Beijing’s foreign ministry office in Hong Kong said it had summoned Julie Eadeh, the US consul general in Hong Kong, for “solemn representations.”
The statement said the move was in response to the “so-called ‘security alert’” issued by the US Consulate General on February 26, days after the Hong Kong government introduced the new national security rule.
In late March, Hong Kong independent bookseller Pong Yat-ming and three of his staff members were reportedly arrested on suspicion of selling seditious titles, including a biography of jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai.
Local media reported on March 24 that national security police arrested one man and three women for allegedly “knowingly selling a publication that has a seditious intention,” an offence under Hong Kong’s homegrown security law, the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, known locally as Article 23.
Citing anonymous sources, the reports said police also raided Book Punch – Pong’s Sham Shui Po bookstore – and seized allegedly seditious publications, including Lai’s 2024 biography – The Troublemaker: How Jimmy Lai Became a Billionaire, Hong Kong’s Greatest Dissident, and China’s Most Feared Critic.
The bookstore owner and the employees were released on bail on March 25, Book Punch said on Facebook. Pong confirmed with HKFP that he and his staff had been released on bail, but he could not say anything about the case.
The high-profile national security trial of Tiananmen vigil activists – barrister Chow Hang-tung and unionist Lee Cheuk-yan – continued in March.
The former leaders of the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China are standing trial for “inciting subversion,” which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail. The third defendant, solicitor Albert Ho, pleaded guilty when the trial opened in January.
The case revolves around the Alliance’s key slogan calling for “an end to one-party rule” in China, which prosecutors allege amounts to a breach of China’s constitution and incitement to subversion.
On March 5, a panel of three national security judges ruled to bar a Taiwanese academic from testifying as the evidence he planned to give was deemed “irrelevant” to the case. Chow had initially applied to have Ho Ming-sho, a sociology professor at National Taiwan University, testify in the trial.
Both defendants had sought early acquittals from their charges, arguing that the prosecution failed to present sufficient evidence.
Lee’s barrister, Erik Shum, argued that prosecutors had misinterpreted the Chinese constitution and erred in saying that there are no “lawful means” to call for an end to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) rule. The lawyer also told the court that calling for an end to the CCP’s rule does not mean “overthrowing” its government and state organs.
Chow, who represents herself, said the prosecution had adopted a broad reading of the Chinese constitution and had erred in alleging that she had directly breached it. The Alliance’s slogans fell within a Chinese citizen’s legitimate demand for choosing the country’s leadership, she also told the court.
However, the court ruled on March 13 that the prosecution established a prima facie case against Chow, Lee, and the Alliance, and the trial would go on.
Taking the stand on March 17, Lee denied that his demand for an end to one-party rule in China amounted to a call to overthrow the CCP. “I have no enmity in my heart, only love. Based on my love for the people, I hoped the Communist Party would reform, to let people have the rights and happiness they deserve,” he said the following day.
Later, on March 20, Chow told the court that the Tiananmen vigils had “always promoted love and responsibility” rather than “hatred and despair.”
She also said writings published by the Alliance were not meant to be subversive, but to expose Hongkongers to democratic movements in mainland China. Her articles were intended to “tell stories” about Chinese activists facing oppression, including the late dissident Liu Xiaobo and his widow Liu Xia, she added.
On March 25, she played a video of the 2018 vigil in the courtroom, as well as a clip of Di Mengqi, a member of the Tiananmen Mothers, recounting the death of her son during the 1989 crackdown. “The most important session of the vigils was the speeches by the Tiananmen Mothers. They are the most directly affected parties and victims of the crackdown,” she said.
The following day, Chow told the court that the Alliance held internal discussions to address “concerns that the national security law would be used as a tool for political suppression,” weeks before its implementation in late June 2020.
Chow called three defence witnesses to testify in court. Former Alliance volunteer Choi Shuk-fong, 66, said she witnessed the Tiananmen crackdown when she was working as a journalist for Sing Tao Daily.
However, the judges barred a photo of injured, bloodied protesters at Tiananmen Square, which was taken by Choi, from being shown in court. “At the moment, I don’t see how this can help the court,” Judge Alex Lee said. Instead, Judge Johnny Chan verbally described the image.
A second defence witness, former vigil attendee Shum Lai-fong, 69, told the court she believed the Alliance’s call for an end to one-party rule was not directed at any specific party.
Kwan Chun-pong, 54, a former standing committee member and volunteer of the Alliance, also testified as a defence witness for Chow. Judge Lee instructed Chow to ask Kwan only questions about matters from 2018 onwards.
At one point, the judge reprimanded Chow when she referred to the crackdown as the “June 4 massacre.” “If you use phrases like this, I will need to consider whether to allow you to continue asking questions,” he said, correcting the term to “June 4 incident.”
Judge Lee adjourned the case to May 18 for the prosecution and the defence to present their closing submissions.
Pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai decided not to appeal against his national security conviction and jail term, his lawyer said on March 6, nearly one month after the sentencing of the Apple Daily founder. The lawyer did not elaborate on the reason for not appealing.
Lai, 78, was sentenced to 20 years behind bars on February 9 – the longest jail term handed down so far under the Beijing-imposed national security law.
Two of his eight co-defendants filed an appeal against their 10-year sentences.
Fung Wai-kong, former editorial writer and editor-in-chief of Apple Daily’s English news section, and Lam Man-chung, former executive editor-in-chief at the tabloid, filed their appeals on March 2 and March 10, respectively, according to local media and High Court documents.
Eight co-defendants – including Fung, Lam and four other former Apple Daily executives – pleaded guilty and were sentenced to up to 10 years in prison alongside Lai.
The pro-democracy Hong Kong Professional Teachers’ Union (HKPTU) officially dissolved last month – nearly five years after it announced steps to disband.
The Registry of Trade Unions gazetted on March 27 that the HKPTU – the city’s largest teachers’ union – was dissolved, marking the end of the group’s half-century of history.
Once a prominent force in Hong Kong’s civil society and democratic movement, the 53-year-old union had over 95,000 members before its dissolution, representing 90 per cent of the profession.
The HKPTU announced it would disband in August 2021, days after attacks by Chinese state media and the Education Bureau’s decision to cut ties with the union.
The Hong Kong Arts Centre (HKAC) revived an Asian film competition in early March after a 17-month hiatus, adding new terms requiring participants to ensure their work complies with the city’s national security legislation.
The HKAC’s Incubator for Film and Visual Media in Asia (ifva) Awards opened for applications on March 1.
According to the awards’ rules and regulations, “entrants must acknowledge and agree [that] the submitted entry… does not violate any provisions of the National Security Law, including these pertaining to secession, subversion, terrorist activities, and collusion with foreign entities.”
As of April 1, a total of 394 people have been arrested for “cases involving suspected acts or activities that endanger national security” since Beijing’s national security law came into effect, according to the Security Bureau. That figure includes those arrested under Article 23 and for other offences.
Of the 208 people and five companies that have so far been charged, 180 people and four companies have been convicted or are awaiting sentencing.
In total, 100 people and four companies have been charged under Beijing’s national security law, with 79 persons and three companies convicted. Thirteen people have been charged under Article 23, 10 of whom have been convicted.
The Hong Kong government has filed an application to seize “offence-related” properties owned by jailed pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai on national security grounds.
The application to the High Court was filed on Thursday “in order to achieve the important objectives of preventing and suppressing acts and activities endangering national security,” the government said in a statement.
It is unclear what the properties are.
The statement mentioned Lai’s earlier convictions under the Beijing-imposed national security law, saying the High Court had found that he was the “mastermind and driving force behind the case, consciously using Apple Daily and his personal influence” to undermine local and Beijing authorities.
The announcement comes a week after the government designated three companies linked to Lai’s now-defunct Apple Daily tabloid “prohibited organisations” and removed them from the corporate registry.
Police cordoned off the Apple Daily building in Tseung Kwan O a day later.
The three firms were tried and convicted alongside the Apple Daily founder in his high-profile national security case. Lai was sentenced to 20 years behind bars while the firms were each fined HK$3,004,500.
Thursday’s statement cited a national security law provision that proceeds obtained from security offences, “including financial aid, gains and rewards, and funds and tools used or intended to be used in the commission of the offence shall be seized and confiscated.”
The High Court will order the forfeiture order “only if it is satisfied, after an application is made by the Secretary for Justice, that the property to be forfeited meets relevant conditions.”
The forfeiture order would cut “funding chains” and prevent further acts that could endanger national security, the statement read.
Six former Apple Daily executives were jailed alongside Lai for up to 10 years. Two of them, Fung Wai-kong and Lam Man-chung, have lodged an appeal.
The jailing of the media tycoon and his staff has drawn international rebuke. United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk deplored the 20-year jail sentence handed to Lai, demanding that the verdict be “promptly quashed”.
In contrast, Hong Kong officials and lawmakers have lauded the jail term. Chief Executive John Lee said Lai “deserves his punishment,” adding that the tycoon had “committed numerous heinous crimes and his evil deeds were beyond measure.”
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