The board of pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily is in emergency meetings as a forced closing looms "in a matter of days" after Hong Kong national security officials froze the company's assets under its national security law, an adviser to jailed tycoon Jimmy Lai told Reuters Monday.
According to Lai's top adviser Mark Simon, Hong Kong authorities are blocking Apple Daily's bank accounts and it may be forced to close the paper's digital and print operations unless officials allow access to the accounts, Bloomberg News reported Monday, too.
Police froze HK$18 million ($2.3 million) in assets of three companies - Apple Daily Ltd., Apple Daily Printing Ltd. and Apple Daily Internet Ltd.
Included in the locked accounts is an additional $500 million, Simon said, adding the process for seeking an unfreezing of the assets will take weeks.
Apple Daily chief editor Ryan Law and publisher Cheung Kim-hung appeared at Hong Kong's West Kowloon Court Saturday to face conspiracy charges under the financial hub's national security law.
Law, 47 and Cheung, 59 were denied bail. Their case was adjourned to Aug. 13, based on a ruling by Chief Magistrate Victor So. Three other executives arrested Thursday were released on bail late Friday, Apple Daily said.
Simon, who is also wanted under the security law and left Hong Kong in 2020, told Reuters it had become impossible to do banking transactions.
"It's the government that decides if Apple Daily stays or goes...once they get rid of us, who's next?" Simon told Bloomberg.
This past weekend Apple Daily said it was planning to ask the Security Bureau to unfreeze some of the funds so it could pay wages for 700 employees by the end of the month.
The police operation is a big escalation in the government's efforts to suppress Hong Kong's news media - of which Apple Daily was widely viewed to be a main target, The Guardian said.
