{"id":1957,"date":"2020-12-11T21:58:00","date_gmt":"2020-12-11T21:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=138225"},"modified":"2020-12-11T21:58:00","modified_gmt":"2020-12-11T21:58:00","slug":"hong-kong-police-charge-apple-daily-founder-lai-with-foreign-collusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/12\/11\/hong-kong-police-charge-apple-daily-founder-lai-with-foreign-collusion\/","title":{"rendered":"Hong Kong police charge Apple Daily founder Lai with \u2018foreign collusion\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"pf-content\">\n<p><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pacmediawatch.aut.ac.nz\/\"> Pacific Media Watch<\/a> newsdesk<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Hong Kong police force has charged media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai, founder of Next Digital Limited, which owns the <em>Apple Daily<\/em> newspaper, with collusion with foreign forces under Hong Kong\u2019s controversial new national security law, reports the Committee to Protect Journalists.<\/p>\n<p>It is a charge that carries up to life in prison if convicted, according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/hk.appledaily.com\/breaking\/20201211\/VFSEPLTKAFE5TCZQF4D3OUCXZY\/\"  rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" aria-label=\"External link: &lt;em&gt;Apple Daily&lt;\/em&gt;\">Apple Daily<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/12\/11\/world\/asia\/hongkong-jimmy-lai-national-security-law.html\"  rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" aria-label=\"External link: news\">news<\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/news.rthk.hk\/rthk\/ch\/component\/k2\/1564771-20201211.htm\"  rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" aria-label=\"External link: reports\">reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCharging Jimmy Lai under Hong Kong\u2019s new national security law marks a dangerous escalation in China\u2019s attacks on Hong Kong\u2019s independent media,\u201d said Steven Butler, CPJ\u2019s Asia programme coordinator, in Washington, DC.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cChina appears intent on crushing what remains of Hong Kong\u2019s much vaunted tradition of press freedom. Lai should be freed at once, and all the charges he is facing should be dropped,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/2020\/08\/11\/rsf-denounces-arrest-of-apple-daily-founder-who-risks-life-imprisonment\/\"><strong>READ MORE:<\/strong> RSF denounces arrest of Apple Daily founder<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Lai has been in custody since police detained him and two\u00a0Apple Daily\u00a0executives on a fraud charge on December 2, as\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/cpj.org\/2020\/12\/hong-kong-court-denies-bail-to-apple-daily-founder-jimmy-lai-in-fraud-case\/\">CPJ documented<\/a>\u00a0at the time.<\/p>\n<p>He is expected to remain in jail at least until a court hearing on April 16, 2021, as a court rejected his bail bid on December 3, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/news.rthk.hk\/rthk\/ch\/component\/k2\/1563346-20201203.htm\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"External link: news\">news<\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/hongkongfp.com\/2020\/12\/03\/just-in-hong-kong-pro-democracy-media-tycoon-jimmy-lai-denied-bail-remanded-in-custody-over-alleged-fraud\/\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"External link: reports\">reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Lai\u2019s collusion charge will enter court proceedings tomorrow at the West Kowloon Courts, according to those reports.<\/p>\n<p>The Hong Kong Police Force did not immediately respond to CPJ\u2019s emailed request for comment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<p class=\"syndicated-attribution\">This post was originally published on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/2020\/12\/11\/hong-kong-police-charge-apple-daily-founder-lai-with-foreign-collusion\/\">Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pacific Media Watch newsdesk The Hong Kong police force has charged media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai, founder of Next Digital Limited, which owns the Apple Daily newspaper, with collusion\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[650,5,651,118,94,652,383,4,358,12,13,14,653],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1957"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1957"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1958,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1957\/revisions\/1958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}