HK's pro-democracy paper to shut down in a blow to press freedom

Publication's demise comes after the govt froze its funds, seized computers, halting critical reporting of Beijing

Apple Daily, a popular newspaper in Hong Kong, has long needled Beijing with its rambunctious support of pro-democracy protesters, aggressive investigations of officials and lampooning of China’s Communist Party leadership. Now China has effectively silenced the paper — and along with it, one of its most defiant critics.
 
Apple Daily said on Wednesday that it was closing less than a week after the police froze its accounts, raided its offices and arrested top editors, as the government’s escalating campaign against dissent takes aim at the city’s once vaunted media freedoms.
 
The forced closure of Apple Daily struck a blow to the unique character of the city itself. The paper churned out stories on celebrity gossip and lurid scandals, as well as hard-hitting political news and analysis, always with a decidedly anti-government slant and an irreverence antithetical to what the Communist Party would allow in the mainland. Even in the face of advertising boycotts, assaults on its journalists and firebomb attacks, the paper persevered and thrived, remaining one of the most widely read newspapers in the city, living proof of the freedoms Hong Kong enjoyed despite its return to Chinese rule in 1997.
 
When anti-government protests erupted in Hong Kong in 2019, posing the greatest political challenge to Beijing in decades, Apple Daily was an unabashed supporter of the movement, even printing placards for demonstrators. But when Beijing moved to quash resistance to its rule in the city with a powerful and sweeping national security law that squeezed space for dissent, Apple Daily quickly became a key target.