'Press freedom' not fig leaf for lawbreaking
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.