Hong Kong's Apple Daily taking legal action against unlawful seizure of 'journalistic materials'

Jimmy Lai, the founder of Hong Kong’s tabloid newspaper Apple Daily was recently released from bail after being put in police custody under the city’s new National Security Law.

According to the South Morning China Post, the newspaper will file an interim injunction against the police raid in the newspaper’s offices.

In conversation with SMCP, the newspaper’s editor-in-chief Ryan Law said that they were seeking an injunction order after “journalistic materials were included in the documents of Apple Daily Charitable Foundation seized by police”.

According to Law, lawyers have already applied for sealing seized material like hard drives, which includes articles, pictures, and video footage.

Hong Kong police force undertook a nine-hour long search operation at the newspaper’s office, after which 30 boxes of documents and three hard drives were reportedly seized.

Is it legal?

Law has questioned the legality of this search operation, and claimed that he had requested the officers to hold back the operation until lawyers had arrived on the spot, but to no avail.

Over 200 officers stormed the Tseung Kwan O offices of the newspaper on Monday, and video footage showed officers rummaging through documents on the desks of journalists.

The police claims that some of the arrested were on the same floor as the editorial department, and did not intend to stir trouble for the journalists, which is why they had undertaken an “initial screening” of what qualifies as editorial materials.

According to Section 50(7) of the Police Force Ordinance, officers may enter premises to search people with warrants, but it does not grant them the power to see material of “journalistic material”. This would require authorisation from a higher court.

The Interpretation and General Clauses Ordinance of Section 82 defines “journalistic materials” as any material created for the purpose of journalism.

Pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai told his staff at Apple Daily to “fight on” early on Wednesday, a day after he was released on bail.Lai was arrested under the new national security law imposed by Beijing in Hong Kong.

"Let's fight on"

"Fight on! Let's fight on," Lai said in a Facebook live broadcast."We have the support of the Hong Kong people. We can't let them down”, he said.

A clampdown has gathered pace in Hong Kong since China imposed a sweeping security law in June, with opposition politicians disqualified and activists arrested for social media posts.

The moves have provoked outrage in the West and fear for millions who last year took to the streets to protest communist China's tightening grip on the semi-autonomous city.

Mainland-born Lai, who was smuggled into Hong Kong on a fishing boat when he was a penniless 12-year-old, is one of the most prominent democracy activists in the city and an ardent critic of Communist Party rule in Beijing.

His arrest cameamid a crackdown on the pro-democracy opposition in Hong Kong that has drawn international criticism and raised fears for freedoms promised by Beijing under a "one country, two systems" formula.

The sweeping security law imposed on June 30 punishes anything China considers secession, subversion, terrorism or collusion with foreign forces with up to life in prison.

The city's Beijing-backed government and Chinese authorities say the law is necessary to restore order after months of at times violent anti-government protests last year, sparked by fears China was slowly eroding those freedoms.