The spokesman for the US State Department, Ned Price , has condemned this Thursday “strongly” the arrests of five media executives owned by magnate Jimmy Lai , under whom they are suspected of conspiring with foreign agents who violate national security law of the china special administrative region.
In a press conference, Price has referred to this event that occurred in the early hours of Thursday and has called for the “immediate release” of the executives. ” We are deeply concerned about the selective use of the national security law by the Hong Kong authorities to arbitrarily target independent media organizations,” he added.
It has also suggested that the charges against the detainees ” appear to be entirely politically motivated “, as well as deplored the assertion by Hong Kong Police Chief John Lee that more than 30 articles in this newspaper “undermine security ”as they were comments or opinion pieces, calling for sanctions against Hong Kong and China. “As we all know, exchanging opinions with foreigners in journalism should never be a crime, ” he said.
“We are concerned about the increasing efforts of the authorities to use the national security law as a tool to suppress independent media, silence dissenting opinions and repress freedom of expression,” he shared, as well as accused Beijing of not ” fulfilling its obligations ” on the 1984 British-Sino Joint Declaration by which London agreed to return Hong Kong to China in exchange for Beijing’s commitment to grant a large degree of political autonomy to the former British colony.
Hong Kong arrested more than 10,000 people
In this sense, he has appealed ” to the Chinese authorities to stop attacking the independent and free media .” “Efforts to suppress media freedom and restrict the right to information not only undermine Hong Kong’s democratic institutions, but also damage Hong Kong’s credibility and viability as an international center,” he said.
The Hong Kong Police have arrested five executives of the Next Digital company and the newspaper ‘ Apple Daily ‘ this Thursday, in addition to having searched the headquarters of the newspaper for five hours with more than 500 agents.
Hong Kong detained more than 10,000 people in the framework of anti-government protests that took place in 2019. The riots led to an internationally criticized national security law passed in June 2020 by the Chinese Parliament. Among these is Lai, who is serving a prison sentence in relation to his participation in these protests and for other crimes.
