Freezing of bank account to shut down pro-democracy outlet
This is a snippet from an article of the Economist which talks about how a pro-democracy news outlet was taken down by freezing its bank accounts.
This is an excerpt from a larger, changing piece named How a free and open Hong Kong became a police state by the Economist.
Almost every prominent democrat in Hong Kong is now either in jail or exile. The fabric of “professions, churches, newspapers, charities, civil servants” which Lord Patten honoured at the handover has been torn apart. A national-security committee, modelled on a counterpart in mainland China, sits above the rest of Hong Kong’s government. July 1st, the 25th anniversary of the handover, saw an ex-policeman and security chief, John Lee, sworn in as chief executive, the first to be drawn from the security services. In 2019 he oversaw the benighted extradition bill. After the national-security law was imposed in 2020 his role as secretary for security made him a prime mover in the city’s devastation. He was chosen from a party shortlist of one, despite being widely loathed in the territory.
The city’s police budget has grown by 45% over the past five years, and the force has been granted sweeping powers to target individuals and organisations without judicial supervision or scrutiny. Nearly 200 people have been arrested under the national-security law, which has a presumption against bail.
One of them is Jimmy Lai, who donated the profits from his T-shirt sales to students in Tiananmen Square in 1989. After his criticism of the party saw him forced to shut down his Giordano clothing chain in mainland China, he pivoted to publishing, founding Apple Daily, a newspaper. In the 2000s it grew to be Hong Kong’s most influential pro-democracy publication. But as time went by, various big firms stopped buying advertisements, fearful of being shut out of the Chinese market. Journalists backed by the party hunted for gossip to undermine him. Pro-Beijing media outlets camped outside his house, intimidating his family and photographing everyone who visited. He was the victim of firebombs and, in 2008, an assassination attempt. Next Digital, the parent company of Apple Daily, was the target of relentless hacking attempts. Mr Lai’s popularity among Hong Kongers only grew.
In 2019 the party sent Mr Lai’s sister from mainland China to Hong Kong with a chilling message: they would send her son to prison if Mr Lai did not shut his paper. He refused and was expunged from a family tree which goes back 28 generations. In August 2020 he was arrested. Mr Lee froze Apple Daily’s bank accounts and Mr Lai’s personal accounts. Unable to pay the paper’s staff, or even its electricity bills, the directors had no choice but to shut the paper down, according to Mark Clifford in his book, “Today Hong Kong, Tomorrow the World”. Mr Lai sits in a prison cell facing multiple charges. A devout Catholic, he prays daily. His family and friends say his letters show him to be in good spirits.
Every other major pro-democracy news outlet in Hong Kong has been closed. The newspapers which matter are Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po—which the party now uses as proxies to help run the city. Democrats have learned to read them closely. If you become one of their targets, you can expect a knock on the door in the middle of the night.
Takeaway Without access to financial resources it is impossible to sustain a business, such as a news outlet. Confiscating bank funds is one of the measures governments employ that are impossible to protect against.
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