UK, EU condemn raid

The European Union and Britain yesterday said a police raid on Hong Kong's pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily showed that China was using a new national security law to crack down on dissent and silence the media rather than deal with public security. 

Just days after the world's richest democracies scolded China over human rights at a Group of Seven summit and the Nato military alliance warned Beijing over its ambitions, Hong Kong police made dawn arrests of Apple Daily newspaper executives.

Five hundred Hong Kong police officers sifted through reporters' computers and notebooks at the daily. Hong Kong Security Secretary John Lee described the newsroom as a "crime scene" and said the operation was aimed at those who use reporting as a "tool to endanger" national security.

Western leaders say Chinese President Xi Jinping, 68, is cracking down on Hong Kong, which Britain handed back to China in 1997, and Western security officials have expressed apprehension about Xi's next target.

Britain and its allies say the national security law breaches the "one country, two systems" principle enshrined in the 1984 Sino-British treaty that guaranteed Hong Kong's autonomy.