(Today, 6/17/2021)Police officers confiscated journalists’ computers and took away considerable journalistic materials after raiding Apple Daily’s headquarters.
Most of the operation was focused on the second floor of the newsroom, where the editorial was located. Officers went through the computers of staff from the news section, designers and video editors. They also made use of the search function and input key words, such as foreign countries and rallies, to go through the files and articles.
According to Lam Man-chung, Executive Editor-in-Chief, officers also targeted the offices of editorial managers and took away their computers and a number of documents and news materials. He revealed that police officers had already accessed the computers before he and other staff members arrived at the office.
He was one of four employees, who were allowed to stay as “witnesses” of the search, but due to the scale of the operation, they were not able to monitor the whole situation. Officers also rummaged through the servers on the third floor and the finance and IT departments on the fourth.
Lam said he is unsure when the operation would end and to what extent the confiscation would affect the editorial work. But Apple Daily will do its best to publish as usual, he pledged.
Two executives and three news staff, who were arrested early on Thursday morning, were taken back to the office to assist with the investigation. Both Chief Editor Ryan Law and Associate Publisher Chan Pui-man gestured that they were okay. “It’s fine,” said CEO Cheung Kim-hung.
The Next Media Union condemned the “blatant violation of press freedom” in a statement. “By merely suggesting some past news articles have breached NSL, [police] can treat editorial staff as criminals, journalistic work as crimes and newsroom as a crime scene,” it wrote.
“As difficult as the current circumstances may be, we will carry on with our jobs with the aim to publish our papers as normal tomorrow,” it added.
Source: Apple Daily:https://en.appledaily.com/apple-daily-vows-to-carry-on-and-publish-as-usual/23RNB4OEZRCXJL5KYNJXMETAPA
