As Hong Kong police raid Apple Daily offices, publication’s live feed allows world to watch drama unfold
- Confrontations between editors and police over warrants, access seen by thousands as newspaper’s staff takes to Facebook during raid
- ‘You swallow whatever is served on your plate’, founder Jimmy Lai tells live audience, while admitting uncertainty about the paper’s future
In scenes broadcast live online by Apple Daily’s own reporters, the newspaper’s founder, Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, his hands handcuffed behind his back, was escorted to his office on Monday morning by scores of police officers.
A few hours later, at about 9.45am, an estimated 200 officers raided the publication’s office in the Tseung Kwan O industrial estate. While few journalists were in the office yet, those who were began streaming the raid on the publication’s Facebook page.
Police inside the newsroom requested that everyone show their staff IDs, while one officer initially told the journalist handling the live broadcast to stop or risk getting into trouble for obstructing officers.
The staff member refused and kept filming. “It is our duty to report, and we will do our very best here, until we are banned from doing so,” the journalist said on the live feed.
Police could then be seen walking around the newsroom, flipping through files and documents on some of the desks, leading the paper’s editor-in-chief, Ryan Law Wai-kwong, to demand they show him which areas of the newsroom the warrant allowed them to search.
The officers ignored Law and asked him to take his complaints, including the fact a lawyer for the newspaper had been barred from entering the building, to more senior officers.
