China’s Communist Party is “kicking off” another round of crackdown on fundamental freedoms in Hong Kong with a second raid on Apple Daily’s headquarters and multiple arrests on Thursday.

About 500 officers overran the newspaper’s offices in Tseung Kwan O, confiscating a load of items in five hours of investigation, including journalistic materials.

They also arrested Chief Executive Cheung Kim-hung, Chief Operating Officer Royston Chow, Editor-in-Chief Ryan Law, Associate Publisher Chan Pui-man and Platform Director of Apple Daily Digital Cheung Chi-wai on suspicion of breaking Article 29 of the city’s national security law, which prohibits “collusion with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security.”

“When everything is becoming state-owned, do you think they will let you run a newspaper? It is just a matter of time … Looks like they are kicking off now,” said Lam Wing-kee, a bookseller turned activist.

Lam was himself among several sellers of political satire publications who were abducted by secret Chinese agents a few years ago. He was whisked across the border to mainland China and detained for weeks. Following the ordeal, he moved to Taiwan in 2019.

“Freedom of speech is no longer allowed [in Hong Kong]. The media and education sectors are being tackled separately,” he said, referring to recent plans by the authorities to introduce a patriotic curriculum in schools.

Former Chinese student leader Wang Dan said: “The crackdown on Apple Daily is a threat to everybody in the press … Following the news media, social groups will be next.” He predicted that the upcoming targets would be democracy organizations such as the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, which had called for the end of one-party rule on the mainland.

Meanwhile, a former colleague of the five arrestees said they all “have journalism in their blood” and “will defend press freedoms to the end.”

Eric Chen, who used to be the publisher of Apple Daily Taiwan, said on his social media platform that he believed the arrests were “stitch-ups” engineered by the Chinese government to destroy the city’s free press.

Famed lyricist Albert Lam echoed Chen in an article published on Apple Daily Taiwan, saying that Hong Kong’s current experience harked back to struggles for democracy in other parts of Asia. “It is a replay of the history of 1970s Taiwan and 1980s South Korea,” he said.

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