'Let the spirit of the "Apple Daily" live on', Benedict Rogers
Never forget the inspiring scenes of thousands of Hong Kongers lining up to buy its last edition on June 23, 2021
Yesterday marked the third anniversary of the closure of Hong Kong’s largest and most successful mass-circulation Chinese language pro-democracy daily newspaper, the Apple Daily.
It is an anniversary all of us who believe in press freedom should mark, every year. We should do so not simply in remembrance of what has been lost, but to learn and be inspired in the struggle for the future.
I will never forget June 23, 2021 — the inspiring scenes of thousands of Hong Kongers lining up to buy the last edition, the incredible images of them waving their mobile phone lights outside the newspaper’s offices, and Apple Daily staff on the rooftop waving their phone lights back. Those images are etched in my mind and on my heart.
Exactly one week before, Apple Daily’s newsroom was raided by 500 police officers. The previous night — just a few hours before the raid — I had gone to bed at home in London having filed what turned out to be my final column for the newspaper’s English language edition.
Every Wednesday night for a year, from June 2020 until June 2021, I wrote a column for the Apple Daily’s English edition. In my entire almost three-decade career as a journalist and writer, I can honestly say it was the pinnacle.
No other newspaper ever gave me such freedom to write whatever I wanted, and as much as I wanted. They gave me no word limit; they never censored me and the only guideline was that the topics I chose should be relevant to readers in Hong Kong. They were happy to take articles on Hong Kong, Greater China issues, or wider Asia subjects. Within that scope, I had free reign. That was the spirit of Apple Daily.
In that very last article that I filed — the night before the newsroom was raided by the police — I reflected on some significant birthdays and anniversaries in the month of June, including Aung San Suu Kyi’s, marked in a Myanmar jail, Uyghur prisoner Gulshan Abbas’, spent in a Xinjiang prison, and the birthdays of several prominent Hong Kong pro-democracy activists.
I also noted that in June, my mother, my nephew, and I celebrated our birthdays, in very different circumstances — in freedom, peace, joy and in the company of loved ones. I highlighted the anniversaries of the June 2019 protests and the Tiananmen Square Massacre on June 4, 1989.
I concluded: “Let’s ensure that as we continue to remember and honor the protesters of June 2019 in Hong Kong, and those in prison for the cause of freedom today, we make these dates not simply as days of remembrance but days of action, in which we redouble our efforts to continue the fight for freedom — for everyone everywhere — so that one day, everyone can celebrate their birthdays as my mother, my nephew and I have done: in freedom, with loved ones, with joy and in peace, and not in prison, exile, separation or fear.”
That article was never published in the Apple Daily. When I woke up on the morning of June 18 to the news of the police raid, I immediately messaged my contact — the person I liaised with over my articles each week — to check if they were safe. Initially, they responded to confirm they were ok, and that they intended to continue “business as usual,” typical of the courageous spirit of Apple Daily.
But then they indicated, for the first time, that they might not be able to run my article. They suggested that I try to find another home for it but hoped that come the following week they could revert to publishing me as usual. It was not to be.
The human rights non-governmental organization (NGO) I co-founded, Hong Kong Watch, published my article on our website and it is still there today. Sadly, Apple Daily’s online content was entirely removed. Many of my articles can be found archived on Hong Kong Watch’s website, but the originals are no more.
On the day Apple Daily published its last edition and shut down completely, I messaged my editorial contact with whom I had liaised, week in, week out for the past year. I wished them well, and said I would never contact them again, but that if they wished or needed to contact me for help, I would always be there for them. They thanked me, and we said goodbye.
They were not someone I had met personally, but through weekly liaisons, we had established a rapport, and I recall the heaviness in my heart at cutting off contact with someone whom I had grown to deeply respect. That one person’s quiet, humble, un-flaunted courage and determination to continue until the bitter end was an inspiration to me — and it was representative of the Apple Daily spirit.
I sincerely hope we might meet in the future. If that person is reading this, they know who I am, I know who they are, and one day we will reconnect.
The tragedy about the closure of the Apple Daily was that it was one of the most blatant, obvious, direct assaults on press freedom anywhere in recent years. The newspaper was successful. It had enough money in the bank to keep the printing presses going, to keep paying its reporters, editors and photographers, and to continue publishing.
Despite the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s best efforts to cut off advertising revenue, it was self-sufficient. The only reason it shut down was because the regime froze its bank accounts, crippling its ability to pay its bills and salaries. It had the money, but it could not access it.
As Hong Kong Media Overseas — an association of exiled Hong Kong media workers — puts it in a statement — the closure of the Apple Daily came after 26 years and was “a major blow to press freedom in Hong Kong.”
But worse was to come. Since the closure of the Apple Daily, almost all other independent media has been shut down, journalists prosecuted and jailed and any remnants of media freedom extinguished.
Hong Kong Watch has detailed this in a 2022 report, In the Firing Line: The Crackdown on Media Freedom in Hong Kong, and the Hong Kong Media Overseas’ own report provides further information.
According to Reporters Without Borders, Hong Kong is now ranked 135th out of 180 in its annual press freedom index.
When I left Hong Kong after five years of working in the city as a journalist in 2002 — five years after the handover — it was ranked 18th in the world. How far and how fast press freedom in Hong Kong has plummeted.
Of course, as we remember the closure of the Apple Daily, we remember the continuing trial and imprisonment of its founder and proprietor, my friend Jimmy Lai.
We must ensure his unjust trial does not stray far from the headlines and that the spotlight remains on it, for his prosecution and imprisonment is a symbol of the assault on Hong Kong’s freedoms.
I will always — every day — call out and pray for #FreeJimmyLai, and I hope you will too.
Only when we keep the eyes of the world on the repression in Hong Kong and the transformation of that beautiful city from an open society to a brutal police state can we have any hope of restraining the repressors and liberating the prisoners.
The Apple Daily may no longer exist. But let the spirit of the Apple Daily live on in us, as we continue that fight for freedom.
Always.
This Article was published in UCA News on 24 June 2024.