Last Apple Daily newspaper edition sold out across Hong Kong

Across Hong Kong, people lined up to buy the last print edition of the last remaining pro-democracy newspaper

HONG KONG -- Across Hong Kong, people lined up early Thursday to buy the last print edition of the last remaining pro-democracy newspaper. By 8:30 a.m., Apply Daily's final edition of 1 million copies was sold out across most of the city's newsstands. The newspaper said it would cease operations after police froze $2.3 million in assets, searched its office and arrested five top editors and executives last week, accusing them of foreign collusion to endanger national security — another sign Beijing is tightening its grip on the semi-autonomous city. In recent years, the newspaper has become increasingly outspoken, criticizing Chinese and Hong Kong authorities for limiting the city’s freedoms not found in mainland China and accusing them of reneging on a promise to protect them for 50 years after the 1997 handover from Britain. The pressure on the paper — and Hong Kong's civil liberties — increased after authorities responded to massive protests in 2019 with a sweeping national security law — used in the arrests of the newspaper employees — and revamped Hong Kong’s election laws to keep opposition voices out of the legislature.