Future of Hong Kong's Apple Daily in Question After Jimmy Lai's Assets Frozen by Government

Media company Next Daily halted trading of shares on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange Monday after authorities froze the assets of its founder Jimmy Lai, a vocal supporter of the pro-democracy movement.

The company's pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily may be in jeopardy as leaders in Beijing crack down on dissenting voices.

Last week, the Taiwan Apple Daily newspaper announced it would no longer publish a print edition because it had been losing money. It also said Next Digital in Hong Kong could no longer support it because "pro-China forces" blocked access to advertising for the flagship Apple Daily and other publications.

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Hong Kong security minister John Lee dismissed concerns that the freezing of Lai's assets was an attack on press freedom and said that under the national security law, he is able to freeze assets if there are reasonable grounds to suspect they are related to offenses that endanger national security.

"The action that we have taken is acting in accordance with the laws to tackle crimes that are endangering national security. It's not directly related to journalism," he said to reporters Monday.

"It is illegal activities that we are dealing with. It is not press work. In regard to timing for my issuing of notices, I will issue it when I have reasonable suspicion that the power should be exercised," Lee said.

Later on Monday, Lai and nine other pro-democracy activists pleaded guilty to taking part in an unlawful assembly in 2019. Lai is already serving a 14-month sentence for his role in two other unauthorized assemblies during a period when Hong Kong residents were involved in mass anti-government protests.

Lai and the nine others who pleaded guilty over an October 2019 demonstration can make mitigation pleas on May 24 and the sentences are to be handed down on May 28. They face up to five years' imprisonment.

The mass protests started over a proposed extradition bill that many saw as an infringement on the freedoms Hong Kong was promised when it was handed over from British to Chinese control in 1997 and then evolved to include broader demands for democracy. After months of protests and sometimes-violent clashes between security forces and protesters, Beijing began tightening its control over the territory.

Last year it imposed a new national security law on the city that is widely seen as giving authorities a way to crack down on dissent that was previously legal. The law broadly criminalizes secession, subversion, terrorism and foreign collusion, and police have arrested more than a hundred people under the legislation.

Lai is under investigation by the national security department for allegedly colluding with foreign powers and endangering national security.

In recent months, Hong Kong police have arrested most of the city's pro-democracy activists and have put prominent activists such as Joshua Wong and Agnes Chow behind bars. Most of the pro-democracy activists arrested are still in police custody.