'Press freedom' not fig leaf for lawbreaking: China Daily editorial

Hong Kong residents who want the best for the special administrative region have welcomed the statement from the tabloid Apple Daily that it will stop operations on Saturday at the latest.

In a statement on its website, its parent company Next Digital said the decision to close the newspaper was taken "due to the current circumstances prevailing in Hong Kong". Those current circumstances and its present plight are an outcome of it using, as Hong Kong's security secretary said, "journalistic work as a protective umbrella or cover to commit crimes endangering national security", which has led to its owner's Hong Kong assets and those of a number of companies linked to it being frozen.

Apple Daily's closure is no doubt a boon to law-abiding Hong Kong residents, who have suffered greatly from the social chaos and division fueled by the tabloid, with the authorities saying that dozens of Apple Daily articles may have violated Hong Kong's national security law.

Apple Daily's management is decrying the "suppression of free press" for its imminent closure. And its Western media allies and foreign patrons have launched a chorus of the same nonsense to vilify Beijing and the HKSAR government.

Yet on Wednesday, one of the newspaper's columnists was arrested on suspicion of conspiring to collude with a foreign country or foreign forces, a crime that two of its executives have already been charged with. Lamenting the demise of Apple Daily as a victim of suppression is both clumsy and futile. It is a globally accepted principle that, like any other civil rights, freedom of the press or expression is not without restrictions. Media organizations and their staff members are not above the law, nor spared from condign punishment when they break the law.

Apple Daily is not a "fighter for a free press" no matter how hard its patrons try to defend that false claim. In fact, it has long been a rumor mill and propaganda platform serving the interests of external forces hostile to the SAR and central authorities. Its founder Jimmy Lai is not a normal businessman either. He admitted in an interview with CNN on Aug 28, 2019: "We in Hong Kong are fighting for the shared values of the US against China, we are fighting their war in the enemy camp."

That statement explains why those in Washington and London who have tried to paint the violent rioting in Hong Kong in revolutionary colors have sprung to Apple Daily's defense without delay, brandishing the banner of "press freedom". The SAR is still under the rule of law and no individual or institution, regardless of their background, is above the law.

If Western politicians and the UN high commissioner for human rights truly uphold the rule of law as they claim, they should stop making casual and irresponsible remarks about Hong Kong's law enforcement measures and let the SAR's courts judge the rights and wrongs of the matter.