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Hong Kong Publisher Jimmy Lai Is Arrested Under National Security Law - The New York Times
Aug 10, 2020 1 min, 46 secs

HONG KONG — The Hong Kong police on Monday arrested seven people, including Jimmy Lai, the media tycoon and critic of the Chinese Communist Party, on charges of violating the territory’s new national security law, making him the most high-profile target of the sweeping legislation imposed by Beijing.

Lai’s company, Next Digital, publishes Apple Daily, a fiercely pro-democracy newspaper that regularly takes on the Hong Kong government and the Chinese leadership.

The newspaper livestreamed video footage of more than 100 police officers turning up in force and raiding Next Digital’s headquarters on Monday morning.

Radio Television Hong Kong, a government-funded broadcaster that has drawn fire for its aggressive coverage of the police, said on Monday that its reporters had been temporarily blocked from a police briefing at the scene.

The police said in a statement on Facebook that officers had entered a building in Tseung Kwan O, the location of Apple Daily’s headquarters, with a search warrant in order to investigate national security offenses.

An Apple Daily reporter said that police officers had loaded bags of documents taken from the building onto a truck.

They did not respond when reporters asked whether they were national security officers and whether they had search warrants.

The new security law has left Hong Kong residents scrambling to erase their digital footprints of messages that previously expressed support for democracy in the territory.

The crackdown in Hong Kong has spurred other governments to take action: Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand have suspended their extradition treaties with Hong Kong, citing concerns around the new security law.

Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Britain and the United States said in a joint statement on Sunday that they were “gravely concerned by the Hong Kong government’s unjust disqualification of candidates” and by the security law, which was “eroding the Hong Kong people’s fundamental rights and liberties.”.

The police have also arrested about 15 people under the security law, including several who participated in protests and four activists accused of posting messages online.

“But for a few tweets, and because they are said to threaten the national security of mighty China

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