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China is again blazing the dystopian path for the rest of the world to follow. 500 Chinese police swarmed the offices of Apple Daily, a pro-democracy Hong Kong newspaper, on Thursday.
In addition to shutting down operations of the news organization and freezing their assets, along with several connected companies, police conducted raids on four executives in their homes. Among those arrested was Apple Daily’s editor-in-chief.
The owner of the paper, Jimmy Lai, is also currently in jail on a list of charges.
The paper’s crime has nothing to do with endangering the lives of Hong residents, or those in mainland China, of course. But their criticisms of the Communist regime that has steamrolled the former vibrant city’s autonomous freedoms have been a thorn in the CCP’s jackboot.
The paper has published a number of articles since 2019 calling on the world to impose sanctions on Hong Kong and the mainland, to counter China’s crushing of freedom and dissent. According to the BBC, China’s “national security” law has been used to target and arrest dozens of prominent activists and pro-freedom Hong Kong leaders over the past year.