HONG KONG: The arrest of five senior executives over content published in Hong Kong’s pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper is a stark warning to all media outlets on the reach of a new national security law, analysts and industry figures say.
It was the first time articles published in Hong Kong have sparked arrests under the new law that cracks down on dissent in the international business and media hub.
Hong Kong’s historical status as a press freedom bastion has been on shaky ground for years. But Thursday’s police raid against Apple Daily was a watershed moment.
Some 500 officers descended on the paper’s newsroom, bundling computers and notepads into evidence bags.
Five executives, including its editor and publisher, were being arrested for “collusion with foreign forces,” one of the new offenses under a national security law China imposed on Hong Kong last year.
Justifying the arrests, Senior Superintendent Steve Li said the contents of 30 articles calling for international sanctions were evidence of “conspiracy” to undermine China’s national security.
Li warned Hong Kongers not to share the articles even as he refused to say which ones were now deemed illegal.
Some, he confirmed, were published before the security law was enacted in June last year, although it is not supposed to be retroactive.
For reporters and publishers across the city, the message was clear: what one writes or prints could lead to a knock on the door from the national security police.
“It’s very heartbreaking,” said Bao Choy, a local reporter who was recently prosecuted over an investigation into the police’s failure to stop an attack by government loyalists on pro-democracy protesters during political unrest in 2019.
“We are walking into a very dark tunnel, it’s kind of endless at this point. I’m not optimistic about the future of journalism in Hong Kong,” she said.
Hong Kong and Chinese officials insisted the arrests were not an attack on the media.
Security secretary John Lee portrayed Apple Daily as an outlier, a “criminal syndicate” that was different to other media.
“This action has nothing to do with normal journalism work,” he said.
“It is aimed at suspected use of journalism as a tool to commit acts that endanger national security. Normal journalists are different from them. Don’t get involved with them, and keep a distance from them.”
Lee’s comments did little to alleviate already heightened concerns that Hong Kong’s days as a media hub are numbered.
Sharron Fast, a lecturer at the University of Hong Kong’s journalism school, said Lee’s words were both “ominous” and opaque.
“There was no clarity at all provided on what amounts to a conspiracy to collude with foreign forces in the context of reporting on developments concerning sanctions and boycotts,” she said.
The Hong Kong Journalists Association said Lee’s words had “spread fear and panic among journalists.”
It said the security law was now “a weapon to prosecute media executives and journalists for publishing reports and articles that are deemed as a threat to national security.”
The city’s Foreign Correspondents Club said the arrests “will serve to intimidate independent media in Hong Kong and will cast a chill over the free press.”
Multiple international media companies, including AFP, have regional headquarters in Hong Kong, attracted to the business-friendly regulations and free speech provisions written into the city’s mini-constitution.
But many are now questioning whether they have a future there.
The New York Times moved its Asia hub last year to South Korea after the law was enacted, and others have drawn up contingency plans.
The Washington Post also chose Seoul for a new Asia hub.
Visas are taking much longer to obtain while Beijing’s state media and senior officials have penned increasingly angry denunciations of the western media’s coverage.
Hong Kong’s leaders say they remain committed to allowing an independent media although the city has steadily plunged down an annual press freedom ranking by Reporters Without Borders, from 18th place in 2002 to 80th this year.
Mainland China languishes 177th out of 180, above only Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea.
It is not clear how long Apple Daily can survive with its owner Jimmy Lai in jail, five executives arrested and most of the company’s assets now frozen.
“The writing is on the wall for Apple Daily,” Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, said.
“Whatever formal justification may be put for the raid on Apple premises and for the arrests, I think the real objective is to make it impossible for Apple to continue to publish in Hong Kong,” he added.
Hong Kong media reel as security law targets democracy paper’s reporting
https://arab.news/6stwv
Hong Kong media reel as security law targets democracy paper’s reporting

- Hong Kong’s historical status as a press freedom bastion has been on shaky ground for years
- Hong Kong and Chinese officials insisted the arrests were not an attack on the media
Film claims to name killer of slain journalist Shireen Abu Akleh

- Produced by independent news site Zeteo, the documentary “Who killed Shireen?” names for the first time the suspect as Alon Scaggio, an elite soldier
NEW YORK: A new documentary purports to name the Israeli soldier who killed Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh, who was gunned down in the West Bank while reporting in 2022.
Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American journalist known for her coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict, was shot dead in Jenin in the north of the occupied West Bank while she worked, wearing a bulletproof vest marked “press.”
Al Jazeera and witnesses immediately blamed the Israeli army. Then Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett said it was probable the shots had come from Palestinian militants.
In the weeks that followed, several journalistic investigations pointed the blame at Israeli gunfire.
Months later, Israel released an internal investigation that found a “high probability” that Abu Akleh was accidentally shot by the Israeli army, which claimed it was targeting armed Palestinians.
Produced by independent news site Zeteo, the documentary “Who killed Shireen?” names for the first time the suspect as Alon Scaggio, an elite soldier.
“Israel did everything it could to conceal the soldier’s identity, they wouldn’t provide the US with any information. They wouldn’t let the US interview him. They wouldn’t give the US his statement. And they wouldn’t give his name,” said Dion Nissenbaum, a journalist who worked on the film.
Assisted by producer Conor Powell and reporter Fatima AbdulKarim — who worked for The New York Times in the West Bank — Nissenbaum, a former Wall Street Journal correspondent, consulted testimony from two Israeli soldiers present in Jenin on May 11, 2022 as well as top US officials.
The documentary alleges that Scaggio, then 20, had completed training for the elite Duvdevan unit just three months prior.
“He shot her intentionally. There’s no question about that. The question is did he know she was a journalist and did he know she was Shireen Abu Akleh? Was it an order from above?” Nissenbaum told AFP.
“Personally, I don’t think it was an order. I don’t think he knew it was Shireen. Nobody ever has indicated that he could tell that it was Shireen. But she was wearing the blue flak-jacket with the word ‘press’ on it.”
“The evidence (suggests)... it was an intentional killing of Shireen Abu Akleh. Whether or not they knew it was her or not can very well be debated, but they would have absolutely known that it was a media person or a non-combatant at a minimum,” said a senior official from the administration of then US president Joe Biden, speaking in the film anonymously.
Washington did not exert significant pressure on the issue, the documentary claims, for fear of antagonizing its ally.
Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen said he called on Biden to declassify documents about the killing — but went unanswered.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said “it is the first time that a potential suspect has been named in connection with an Israeli killing of a journalist” according to its records dating back to 1992.
Impunity in the case “has effectively given Israel permission to silence hundreds more” journalists, the CPJ said.
Reporters Without Borders estimates around 200 journalists were killed in the past 18 months of Israeli strikes on Gaza.
An Israeli army spokesman condemned the unauthorized disclosure of the suspect’s name despite no “definitive determination” of who shot Abu Akleh.
The soldier in question “fell during an operational activity,” the army added.
Nissenbaum had initially thought Scaggio died in Gaza, but ultimately concluded he was killed in Jenin on June 27, 2024 almost two years after Abu Akleh.
Ray-Ban Meta glasses to launch in the UAE

- Release ‘marks beginning of an effortless, more connected future,’ senior Meta official says
- Collection features different styles and lens variations, including prescription lenses
DUBAI: Meta and optical multinational EssilorLuxottica have announced that the Ray-Ban Meta collection will be available in the UAE from May 12.
The glasses, when paired with a smartphone, allow users to take hands-free pictures and videos, listen to audio with open-ear speakers, and use the inbuilt Meta AI assistant.
The launch “marks the beginning of an effortless, more connected future — one that empowers people to stay in the moment while staying connected to the things and people that matter most,” Fares Akkad, regional director for Middle East and Africa at Meta, told Arab News.
The glasses feature an ultrawide 12-megapixel camera, which can take photos and 1080-pixel videos of up to three minutes. Users can also stream live via the glasses to Instagram or Facebook for up to 30 minutes.
Meta AI, the company’s AI assistant, is built into the glasses and can be used through voice prompts to help with tasks such as recommending music or clicking a picture.
In the coming months, users in the UAE will also be able to use Meta AI to ask questions about their surroundings, such as identifying landmarks or translating street signs, as well as live translation of conversations in English, French, Italian and Spanish. However, live translation for Arabic is not supported yet.
Akkad said: “Just a few years ago, the idea of wearing glasses that could take pictures and videos with voice command, translate to different languages, and become a seamless, helpful assistant everywhere you go felt like something out of science fiction.
“Today, it is a tangible reality.”
Users will be able to regularly update the software on the glasses to enable more features as they are rolled out. These include timers, alarms, calendar and email access.
The Ray-Ban Meta collection features different styles and lens variations, including prescription lenses.
It will be available at all Ray-Ban and partner stores in the UAE from May 12 with prices starting at AED1,330 ($360).
India tells X to block over 8,000 accounts, mainly Pakistani

- Move appears to be part of India’s sweeping crackdown targeting social media accounts of Pakistani politicians, celebrities and media organizations
- X said it disagreed with the demands but it had begun the process to withhold the specified accounts in India
WASHINGTON: India has ordered X to block more than 8,000 accounts, the platform said Thursday, adding that it was reluctantly complying with what it described as government-imposed “censorship.”
The move appears to be part of India’s sweeping crackdown targeting social media accounts of Pakistani politicians, celebrities and media organizations amid heightened tensions and deadly confrontations between the nuclear-armed neighbors.
The order, which X said includes demands to block international news organizations and other prominent users, comes a day after Meta banned a prominent Muslim news page on Instagram in India at New Delhi’s request.
“X has received executive orders from the Indian government requiring X to block over 8,000 accounts in India, subject to potential penalties including significant fines and imprisonment of the company’s local employees,” the site’s global government affairs team said in a statement.
It added that in most cases, the government had not specified which posts from the accounts violated Indian laws, and in many others, it provided no evidence or justification for the blocks.
The Elon Musk-owned platform said it disagreed with the demands but it had begun the process to withhold the specified accounts in India.
“Blocking entire accounts is not only unnecessary, it amounts to censorship of existing and future content, and is contrary to the fundamental right of free speech,” the statement said.
“This is not an easy decision, however keeping the platform accessible in India is vital to Indians’ ability to access information.”
The move comes amid fierce fighting between India and Pakistan, two weeks after New Delhi blamed Islamabad for backing a deadly attack on tourists in the Indian-run side of the disputed Muslim-majority region of Kashmir.
Pakistan rejects the charge.
At least 48 people have been killed on both sides of the border in escalating violence since India launched air strikes on Wednesday that it said targeted “terrorist camps.”
Both countries accused each other on Thursday of carrying out waves of drone attacks.
X said it could not make the Indian executive orders public due to legal restrictions, but it encouraged the impacted users to seek “appropriate relief from the courts.”
It did not name the affected users, but in recent days the Indian media has reported that the country has blocked the X accounts of Pakistani politician Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and Pakistan’s former prime minister and cricket captain Imran Khan.
India has also banned more than a dozen Pakistani YouTube channels for allegedly spreading “provocative” content, including Pakistani news outlets.
Pakistani Bollywood movie regulars Fawad Khan and Atif Aslam were also off limits in India, as well as a wide range of cricketers — including star batters Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan and retired players Shahid Afridi and Wasim Akram.
Rising hostilities between the South Asian neighbors have unleashed an avalanche of online misinformation, with social media users circulating everything from deepfake videos to outdated images from unrelated conflicts, falsely linking them to the ongoing fighting.
Ireland’s RTE urges talks on Israel’s Eurovision participation amid growing pressure

- European Broadcasting Union ‘whitewashing’ Israeli war crimes
- EBU must ban Israel like it did with Russia in 2022, say activists
DUBAI: Ireland’s national broadcaster RTE has invited the European Broadcasting Union for talks on Israel’s participation in the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest, as pressure mounts from dozens of former contestants demanding the country’s exclusion.
RTE’s Director-General Kevin Bakhurst has expressed deep concern over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the situation of Israeli hostages, emphasizing the need for RTE to remain objective in its coverage of the war.
He also pointed to political pressure on Israel’s public broadcaster, Kan, from the Israeli government.
Israel, a Eurovision participant since 1973, is set to compete in this year’s contest, running from May 13 to 17, in Basel, Switzerland, with singer Yuval Raphael, a survivor of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack at the Nova music festival.
Earlier this week, in an open letter, 72 former Eurovision contestants called on the EBU to ban Israel and its national broadcaster, KAN, from this year’s contest.
They cited the country’s war in Gaza and accused the union of “normalizing and whitewashing” alleged Israeli war crimes.
They argued that Israel’s participation would be inconsistent with the EBU’s decision to ban Russia in 2022 over its invasion of Ukraine.
The EBU previously said it acknowledges the concerns but aims to keep Eurovision a positive, inclusive event that transcends politics and unites people through music.
Israel detains Palestinian journalist amid press freedom concerns

- Ali Al-Samudi, 58, would remain in custody until October due to ‘considerations for the security of the region and public safety,’ Israeli military said
RAMALLAH: Israel’s military said on Thursday it would hold a Palestinian journalist arrested last month in administrative detention, raising fresh concerns over press freedom.
Ali Al-Samudi, 58, would remain in custody until October due to “considerations for the security of the region and public safety,” the military said in a newly published decree.
The Palestinian Commission for Detainees and the Palestinian Prisoners Club denounced the decision and Samudi’s treatment since his arrest on April 29.
His detention, they said in a joint statement, was part of Israel’s increasing use of administrative detention against journalists since the Gaza war began.
They said the practice had “intensified dramatically.”
Samudi is a freelance journalist who works with several outlets, including Al Jazeera.
He was with Shireen Abu Akleh when she was killed by gunfire in Jenin on May 11, 2022. He was shot and wounded in the shoulder.
The Prisoners Club says Israel has detained 50 Palestinian journalists since the Gaza war began on Oct. 7, 2023, with 20 held under administrative detention.
The practice, a legacy of the British Mandate, allows Israel to detain people without charge, with detentions renewable indefinitely.
The commission and the club held Israel responsible for Samudi’s life and fate, saying he “suffers from several health issues and previous injuries.”
The Journalists’ Syndicate and Palestinian human rights organizations have reported the killing of more than 200 journalists in the Gaza Strip.
Other journalists have gone missing during the ongoing war, while Israel continues to prevent foreign journalists from entering Gaza.
In a statement published last week, the Jerusalem-based Foreign Press Association noted that “never in Israel’s history has the government imposed sweeping restrictions on the media for such an extended period.”
Between 2024 and 2025, Israel went down 11 places on Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index, from 101 to 112 respectively.