The abrupt freeze on the assets of Apple Daily’s founding chairperson, Jimmy Lai, by Hong Kong authorities will not affect the company’s daily operations, its parent company stated on Friday.

Cheung Kim-hung, the chief executive of Next Digital, was responding to the Hong Kong Security Bureau’s announcement that it has frozen the assets belonging to the jailed media magnate. The amount was said to range between HK$300 million (US$39 million) and HK$500 million.

This is believed to be the first use of seizure powers granted to authorities under Article 43 of the national security law, which Beijing imposed on Hong Kong last June, to effectively criminalize the city’s once-tolerated dissenting voices.

The Security Bureau’s announcement said: “Where the Secretary for Security has reasonable grounds to suspect that any property held by any person is offence-related property, the Secretary may, by notice in writing specifying the property, direct that a person must not, directly or indirectly, deal with the property except under the authority of a licence granted by the Secretary.”

The assets included all Next Digital shares held by the 73-year-old Lai as well as funds in local bank accounts of three companies that Lai owns, the bureau said. Lai holds 71.26% of Next Digital’s shares.

Cheung said the freeze did not affect Next Digital’s bank accounts, and will not influence the financial situation or operations of either Apple Daily or Next Digital.

“Apple Daily will be published as usual tomorrow. Don’t forget to get a copy,” the paper’s editor-in-chief, Chan Pui-man, wrote on Facebook on Friday.

Senior managers at Next Digital met with employees on Tuesday to defuse rumors about a possible cessation of operations. The managers said business at Apple Daily would remain normal, promising not to shut down or dismiss employees.

“We won’t shut [Apple Daily] down because it is in a dangerous situation,” Cheung pledged on Tuesday. “No, definitely not, I can reassure you this will not happen.”

Lai was sentenced to 14 months in jail last month after being convicted of organizing and participating in two unauthorized assemblies during the mass anti-government protest movement in August 2019.

He was charged by the city’s national security police in December last year for “colluding with foreign or foreign forces to endanger national security,” a crime under the national security law punishable by life imprisonment. He was indicted on two further charges last month.

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