Clifford Lo

Hong Kong police arrested Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai under the national security law as part of an investigation into an online group that canvassed foreign countries to sanction the city and received more than HK$1 million ($129,000) from overseas bank accounts, the South China Morning Post has learned. Former student activist Agnes Chow and two others arrested were also allegedly involved in the group. Sources said the group is called “I want laam caau,” a Cantonese expression meaning “embrace and fry.” It sums up the popular protest slogan, “If we burn, you burn with us,” used by participants in the anti-government unrest that roiled the former British colony last year. Officers from t

Hong Kong police on Monday raided the offices of the city’s Apple Daily newspaper and arrested its founder Jimmy Lai, an outspoken critic of Beijing, under the new national security law. A police source told the South China Morning Post that the media mogul was arrested “for collusion with a foreign country, uttering seditious words and conspiracy to defraud.” Another eight people, including Lai’s two sons, had also been taken into custody. The arrests were the most high-profile use to date of Hong Kong’s security law, which was imposed on the former British colony in June amid opposition from the city’s pro-democracy lawmakers and Western democracies including the United States. In response

Hong Kong police held a 12-year-old boy who was reporting for a student news service as anti-government protests returned to the city’s streets over the weekend.  The boy was released without charge on Sunday evening, but his mother later said police had threatened to arrest her if the boy was spotted at future protests. The Hong Kong protest movement was largely subdued by the coronavirus pandemic, but with the city reporting no local cases for 23-straight days, anti-government demonstrators have recently become more active. On Mother’s Day, crowds gathered at malls to chant slogans and sing protest songs while others tried to block roads with burning trash cans. Hong Kong police made a mas

Customs officials in Hong Kong have made their largest ever shark fin seizure, uncovering 28.7 tons taken from 38,500 endangered sharks inside a pair of shipping containers from South America, the city’s authorities said. The two consignments, worth $1.1 million, more than doubled the combined hauls of shark fin seized in all of 2019, according to Hong Kong’s customs department. Assistant superintendent Danny Cheung Kwok-yin of the agency said both consignments were sent from the same shipper to the same Hong Kong logistics company. Customs officers have arrested the owner of the logistics firm, but the 57-year-old man has been granted bail pending further investigation. A law enforcement so

Detectives in Hong Kong investigating the seizure of two powerful home-made bombs at a school campus believe they were intended for an attack on police at a democracy march that happened at the weekend, sources said on Tuesday. The apparent bomb plot, revealed amid long-running anti-government unrest, prompted a police union to describe the city’s security situation as at its “most alarming” in decades, even worse than during a wave of armed robberies in the 1990s. Force insiders believed the would-be bombers were forced to abandon the attack planned for Sunday after a group of their associates were arrested in a police swoop that morning, hours before the march – which attracted hundreds of

Masked protester or trick-or-treater? Hong Kong’s police may soon have to spot the difference to enforce a recent ban on face masks intended to end months of civil unrest. The Hong Kong police force has planned to deployed water cannons and 3,000 riot officers to prepare for potential clashes on Thursday night.  Hong Kong has been gripped since June by demonstrations sparked by opposition to a now-withdrawn extradition bill that has resulted in frequent street violence and confrontations between protesters and the police. A police source told the South China Morning Post that there was a high risk of trouble on Halloween, when protesters could take advantage of the occasion to get around th

Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong has been banned from running in local elections next month, a move that could further fuel public anger at the city’s limited democracy underpinning months of social unrest. Wong was the only candidate disqualified from the polls, to be held on November 24, on the basis of his political stance. “The ban is clearly politically driven,” Wong said. “My disqualification will only trigger more people to take to the streets and vote in the coming elections.” Wong is a co-founder of the party Demosisto, whose founding mission is to strive for Hong Kong’s “self-determination.” The former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997 under the promise o

An organizer of some of the largest anti-government demonstrations in Hong Kong’s history was attacked on Thursday. Jimmy Sham, the convener of the Civil Human Rights Front, and his assistant were hit by two masked men with baseball bats in a restaurant. The assault came on the eve of planned protests on Saturday demanding freer elections of the leader and legislature of the former British colony, which returned to Chinese rule under an arrangement called “one country, two systems.” Increasingly concerned that the political firewall between Beijing and Hong Kong is being eroded, a generation of young people has taken to the streets to take part in what they consider to be a fight to preserve

Hong Kong police are buying new anti-riot protective gear from a Chinese manufacturer, which has also supplied law enforcement units in the Middle East and Southeast Asia.  Senior superintendent Kong Wing-chueng from the police public relations branch confirmed on Tuesday that the force had bought new protective suits. Sources said 500 sets of the suits had been purchased from a mainland company.  Kong said the purchase was made after protests in Hong Kong turned increasingly violent in recent months. “As a responsible employer, we purchase any equipment that provides the best protection to our officers,” he said. Police sources said it was the first time supplies for the force had been sou

A 66-year-old businesswoman in Hong Kong has set a new record in the city, for the greatest sum of money lost in an online love scam: $23 million. According to police, the victim, a wealthy widow who runs a real estate investment company, transferred the money over four years to a man posing as an engineer from Britain. The money she lost was nearly seven times the previous record of $3.3 million, which was swindled out of a public housing tenant over a period of 18 months. The latest case came to light after the woman had a conversation with her family and realized she was being duped. She contacted police last month. A con artist posing as a British engineer befriended her on an online pla