Hong Kong/Washington/New York: China is drawing international flak after Hong Kong’s pro-democracy newspaper, Apple Daily printed its last issue today. The closure of the newspaper comes days after the police raided the its office, arrested its top editors and froze the newspaper’s bank accounts. In Hong Kong, people lined up for hours to buy the final copy of the newspaper, which printed one million copies today.
It’s 1:45am, and there is a very, very long queue for the final edition of Apple Daily at the newsstand in Mongkok.
There will be a million copies printed, but people are still worried they can’t get their hands on one. Goodnight, 🍎. pic.twitter.com/M30tzlSPHA
— K Tse (@ktse852) June 23, 2021
Taking strong exception to the closure of the daily, US President Joe Biden today said “It is a sad day for media freedom in Hong Kong and around the world.”
Biden accused Beijing of intensifying repression that reached such a level that Apple Daily, “a much-needed bastion of independent journalism in Hong Kong”, had to cease publishing.
“Through arrests, threats, and forcing through a National Security Law that penalizes free speech, Beijing has insisted on wielding its power to suppress independent media and silence dissenting views,” Biden said. He reminded that independent media play an invaluable role in resilient and prosperous societies. “Journalists are truth-tellers who hold leaders accountable and keep information flowing freely—and that is needed now more than ever in Hong Kong, and in places around the world where democracy is under threat,” the US President said and told Beijing that it must stop targeting the independent press and release the journalists and media executives that have been detained. “The act of journalism is not a crime,” he said, and categorically said that people in Hong Kong have the right to freedom of the press.
“Instead, Beijing is denying basic liberties and assaulting Hong Kong’s autonomy and democratic institutions and processes, inconsistent with its international obligations. “The United States will not waver in our support of people in Hong Kong and all those who stand up for the basic freedoms all people deserve,” he declared.
Earlier in New York, the issue was raised at the United Nations headquarters also where Spokesman for the Secretary-General, Stéphane Dujarric, was pointedly asked during his routine press briefing that whether the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres had talked with the Ambassador of China about the closures and the arrest of journalists in Hong Kong. “The Secretary-General, as far as I know, has not had a contact with the Ambassador of China. We have expressed our opinion on this and also reiterated the need that… reiterated our principle, which the Secretary-General said even to all of you — I think the day of his election — which is that independent media is really a pillar of an open and participatory society,” Dujarric had replied.
Just a day before the people bade emotional farewell to the newspaper today, pro-democracy activist Nathan Law, who was elected as the youngest lawmaker in Hong Kong at 23 and is at present exiled in London, tweeted, “Most of you may not understand how dreadful the closure of Apple Daily means to Hong Kong. Not only to its journalistic landscape, but also to the people and the city itself…”
It may be mentioned that Apple Daily – a Chinese tabloid-style newspaper which was in publication from 1995 to 2021, was once one of the best-selling Chinese language newspapers in Hong Kong.
The British newspaper The Guardian today carried an article by Louisa Lim, author of The People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited, and is a senior lecturer at the University of Melbourne, with a heading, “The closure of Apple Daily marks the start of a sinister new era for Hong Kong”.
– global bihari bureau
