Apple Daily shutdown nothing to do with 'media freedom'

On Saturday, Media Freedom Coalition, an organization made of 21 Western nations, issued a statement concerning Apple Daily's shutdown and the arrest of its executives, saying it "undermines freedom".

The statement is full of errors and distortions about basic facts. First, they called it a "forced closure", but the fact is Apple Daily executives made the decision to shut down, with business difficulties possibly being the main cause.

Having told too many lies, Apple Daily lost public trust and saw a sharp decline in sales and subscribers since 2019. In the first half of fiscal year 2019, it suffered a loss of HK$310 million ($39.9 million); in August 2019, the eve of it starting to collect fees from subscribers, the comments and "like"s it got on social networks dropped by 80 percent.

In September 2020, 15 suspects were arrested for controlling the stock prices of Next Digital, to which Apple Daily belongs; this May, Apple Daily shut down its Taiwan branch. Apple Daily's shutdown is mainly caused by its market failure, which would happen even without the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Security Bureau freezing its funds. The freezing was just used as an excuse for the tabloid to dismiss its staff without paying them one month's salary as required by law.

Second, MFC did not mention in its statement what Apple Daily did that led to its funds being frozen. It spread hate in society, praised rioters that wounded police and civilians as "heroes" and brainwashed youngsters to act as cannon fodder. In none of the 21 signatory nations is such a deed allowed, and anyone daring to do it will face penalties. So why apply a different standard when it comes to Hong Kong?

Third, it's rather astonishing for them to mention the HKSAR Basic Law and the Sino-British Joint Declaration. The National Security Law is fully in accordance with the Basic Law, and has received wide approval in Hong Kong and protected the people there well. As for the Sino-British Joint Declaration, all the terms related to the UK had long been met and the UK has no power to intervene, although it constantly violated the spirit of the joint declaration by attempting to intervene in Hong Kong's own affairs, such as granting HK holders of BNO passports a special visa policy. It is the UK that did wrong, not China.

Had the signatory parties learned a little about Hong Kong, they would not have made such a claim. They should learn some facts before opening their mouths.