Hong Kong: Hong Kong police arrested media tycoon Jimmy Lai and raided the publisher’s headquarters Monday in the highest-profile use yet of the new national security law C imposed on the city in June.
“Jimmy Lai is being arrested for collusion with foreign powers at this time,” Mark Simon, an executive of Lai’s media group and his aide, wrote on Twitter.
Lai, masked and wearing a blue shirt and a light gray blazer, was led out of his mansion in Kowloon by police officers also wearing surgical masks and was taken away.
Hong Kong police said seven people between 39 and 72 years old had been arrested on suspicion of violating the new security law, with offences including collusion with a foreign country, but the statement did not reveal the names of those arrested. The police did not rule out further arrests to be made.
Lai, 71, owns popular tabloid Apple Daily and is an outspoken pro-democracy figure in Hong Kong who regularly criticizes China’s authoritarian rule. Last year, Lai met Vice President of the United States Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the White House to discuss Hong Kong’s controversial legislation — since withdrawn — that would have allowed suspects to be extradited to China to stand trial.
