A ‘victim of tyranny’

Hong Kong's pro-democracy Apple Daily tabloid said it was a "victim of tyranny" in a defiant final edition yesterday after it was forced to close under a new national security law, ending a 26-year run of taking on China's authoritarian leaders. 

The sudden death of the popular newspaper is the latest blow to Hong Kong's freedoms, deepening unease over whether the international finance centre can remain a media hub as China seeks to stamp out dissent.

Queues formed across Hong Kong yesterday as residents raced to snap up one of the one million copies Apple Daily said it planned to print. Many vendors sold out within minutes and were awaiting fresh deliveries.

The swansong front page featured the paper's own journalists waving goodbye to crowds outside its headquarters.

"Apple Daily is dead," deputy chief editor Chan Pui-man, who was arrested last week on a national security charge, wrote in a farewell letter to readers.

"Press freedom became the victim of tyranny."

In the working-class district of Mongkok, hundreds queued through the early hours of the morning to get their hands on the final edition, some chanting "Apple Daily we will meet again!"

"It's very shocking," a 30-year-old woman, who was in the queue and gave her first name as Candy, told AFP.

"Within two weeks, authorities could use this national security law to dismantle a listed company."

Hong Kong's most popular  tabloid had long been a thorn in Beijing's side, with unapologetic  support for the city's pro-democracy movement and caustic criticism of  China's authoritarian leaders.

Those same leaders used a new security law to bring about its rapid demise.

Owner Jimmy Lai, currently in jail for attending democracy protests,  was among the first to be charged under the law after its imposition  last year.

But the final chapter was written over the last week when authorities  deployed the security law to raid the newsroom, arrest senior  executives and freeze its assets.

That last move crippled the paper's ability to conduct business or  pay staff and the news group decided yesterday's newspaper would be its  last.

Overnight it took down its website, Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Its edition in Taiwan will continue to operate. But some 1,000 people, including 700 journalists, are now out of work.

"Hong Kongers lost a media organisation that dared to speak up and  insist on defending the truth," eight local journalist associations said  in a joint statement.

China imposed its  security law on Hong Kong last year after the city was convulsed by huge  and often violent democracy protests in 2019.