Anyone who calls for overseas sanctions on Beijing and Hong Kong authorities will be in violation of national security laws, which do not require proof of links with foreign forces, a legally trained member of Hong Kong’s de facto cabinet has said.

Buying a newspaper was not a crime, executive councillor Ronny Tong SC said on Friday.

The day before, Hong Kong’s Secretary of Security John Lee had warned journalists and the public to cut ties with five Apple Daily figures arrested on suspicion of collusion with foreign forces by publishing about 30 Chinese and English articles that purportedly sought sanctions on the Chinese and Hong Kong governments.

Lee repeatedly skirted round reporters’ questions about whether one would be criminally liable by sharing Apple Daily’s social media posts or subscribing to the newspaper, although police had told the media separately, after a 500-strong raid of the newsroom on Thursday, that people sharing the as-yet unidentified articles would be “attracting suspicion.”

Tong, a former chair of the Hong Kong Bar Association, said on a radio programme on Friday morning that one’s intent to collude with others might not be evident just by looking at a written piece of work, unless there were also documents or messages which could strengthen the evidence.

Proof that the suspect conspired with other people to commit collusion was sufficient to meet the threshold for a conspiracy offense, the barrister said.

People who did not have the intention of calling for foreign sanctions, such as ordinary residents buying the Apple Daily newspaper, would not be breaking the law, he said.

Thursday’s high-profile operation marks the first time that police have arrested journalists under Hong Kong’s national security law, which was enacted on June 30 last year.

Tong said in response to rising concerns about media freedom that the latest arrests had no direct link with freedom of the press or with news reporting, as only a few people were apprehended.

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