2014-08-28
Media tycoon Jimmy Lai stands outside his company's headquarters in Hong Kong on Feb. 7, 2011. His muckraking tabloid Apple Daily is a must- read for its celebrity gossip, crime news and hard-driving political coverage with an anti-Beijing stance.
AFP
Anti-corruption police in Hong Kong raided the home of an outspoken media magnate and a pro-democracy leader on Thursday amid growing fears over the erosion of press freedom and a more pro-active role by Beijing officials in the city's political life.
The home of Next Media founder Jimmy Lai, whose Apple Daily newspaper is often critical of Beijing, was searched by officers from the former British colony's Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC).
Officers also raided the home of pro-democracy lawmaker Lee Cheuk-yan, who is a vocal rights activist and critic of the June 4, 1989, military crackdown on student-led democracy protests on Tiananmen Square.
"The ICAC was here," Lai confirmed to reporters after the search on Thursday.
But he added: "They've all gone now, and there is no further comment."
The ICAC issued a statement saying that it had searched three residences as well as an office in the Legislative Council, but gave no names.
According to Lee, however, the investigation is focusing on donations Lai made to his Labour Party, which do not need to be publicly disclosed under Hong Kong law.
"I don't really understand why he's supposed to have used donations as a form of influence," Lee told reporters. "The Labour Party has long held the view that we need press freedom."
He added: "We have cooperated with the ICAC investigation today, so now it's up to them."
‘Darkest days’
The raids came as the ruling Chinese Communist Party prepares to make public its decision on how the 2017 elections for chief executive of Hong Kong will be run.
Journalists and political commentators say Hong Kong's formerly free press is seeing its "darkest days" yet in what is likely a harbinger of further erosion of the city's traditional freedoms.
In a recent annual report, the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA) pointed to a series of "grave attacks, both physical and otherwise in the past 12 months," including an attack on former Chinese-language Ming Pao chief editor Kevin Lau, the sacking of Commercial Radio talk-show host Li Wei-ling and the removal of other prominent journalists from senior editorial positions.
Advertising boycotts by major companies and the refusal of licenses to pro-democracy media, and a major cyber-attack on the Apple Daily website in June, have also been cited as reasons for concern.
Taking to the streets
Organizers of the Occupy Central campaign, which has vowed to take over Hong Kong's downtown financial and shopping district if voters are denied public nominations in the 2017 race for the next chief executive, say half a million took to the streets in a July 1 rally in support of universal suffrage.
