• sab@kbin.social
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      2 years ago

      He published newspapers. He was a newspaper publisher.

      There’s no free speech in China. Publishing a newspaper that doesn’t follow the line of the Chinese Communist Party is a crime, and after the CCP took control over Hong Kong that applied to him as well.

        • socsa@lemmy.ml
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          2 years ago

          The Jan 6 people were not arrested for publishing a newspaper.

            • cryptosporidium140@lemmy.world
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              2 years ago

              They were definitely not, you’ve got to be shitting me. They wanted their glorious Cheeto Man to still be president after he lost a democratic election

                • cryptosporidium140@lemmy.world
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                  2 years ago

                  They also did a bit more than speech and assembly, if it were just that we wouldn’t be imprisoning them. It doesn’t matter what you believe, if you shoot your friend because you think he’s a zombie and then he turns out not to be, that’s still a crime

        • sab@kbin.social
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          2 years ago

          The arrest itself was actually “motivated” by what they referred to as unauthorised assembly during the pro-democracy protests. This 73 year old man went somewhere he shouldn’t have, and clearly threatened the mighty CCP enough to warrant 20 months in prison in the process. Additional charges up to life are being stacked on top following from the “security law” meant to silence pro-democracy voices in Hong Kong, but as far as I know these charges have not been made public. His newspaper was published daily though, so the nature of his crime was quite public if you’re really interested.

          Here’s a BBC story on the history of the newspaper.

          I’m sorry I couldn’t find anything published by Xinhua News Agency, I have a feeling you might have appreciated that more.

            • NOT_RICK@lemmy.world
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              2 years ago

              Authoritarians often give vague or even contradictory justifications for arresting people. Apple Daily was promoting democracy in Hong Kong which was enough for him to be made an example of.

                • cryptosporidium140@lemmy.world
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                  2 years ago

                  They didn’t need justifications, at least not specific ones. There’s a very distinct implication here that China vaguely found this man’s pro-democracy speech and assembly dangerous to the establishment and that was enough

    • socsa@lemmy.ml
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      2 years ago

      Literally ran a newspaper which espoused democracy and independent governance (Hong Kong status quo at the time).

      You might also be interested to learn that democratically elected legislators in Hong Kong were arrested en masse from the floor of their legislative building for the exact same reason. It’s as bad as it sounds.