“The newsroom raid and arrest of Apple Daily staff reflect an acceleration of Hong Kong authorities' systematic efforts to transform the territory's institutions into authoritarian extensions of the Chinese Communist Party,” said Michael J. Abramowitz, president of Freedom House. “Treating independent, fact-based journalism as a threat to national security is an unacceptable attack on press freedom and comes amid a wider crackdown on freedom of expression and freedom of assembly in Hong Kong. Since the implementation of the National Security Law last June, and nearly 24 years since the territory’s handover from the United Kingdom to China, Hong Kong has been transformed by the severe erosion of human rights and fundamental freedoms.”
“Democratic nations should not only publicly condemn the Hong Kong authorities’ relentless pace of arrests on dubious national security charges, but back up their statements with coordinated, tangible support for civil and human rights in Hong Kong,” Abramowitz added.
