Hong Kong journalist Chan Pui-man is awaiting sentencing for conspiring to collude with foreign powers after pleading guilty in return for clemency on another charge. Police arrested Chan, the associate publisher of pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, several times in 2021, and she has been held since July 21, 2021.
Apple Daily, a subsidiary of the media company Next Digital Limited, was published from 1995 to 2021, according to the company’s corporate information page.
Hong Kong police arrested Chan, Next Digital Chief Operating Officer Royston Chow and Chief Executive Officer Cheung Kim-hung, Apple Daily editor-in-chief Ryan Law Wai-kwong, and Apple Action News platform director Cheung Chi Wai from their homes on June 16, 2021, on suspicion of conspiring to collude with foreign forces, a crime under Hong Kong’s national security law. Chan, Chow, and Cheung Chi Wai were released on bail on June 18 after 40 hours of detention. Chow was later granted immunity for testifying against Apple Daily and Next Digital founder Jimmy Lai, who had been imprisoned since December 2020.
According to the South China Morning Post, police cited over 30 articles published by Apple Daily, mostly commentary and opinion pieces calling for foreign sanctions, as evidence. Police also raided the newspaper’s headquarters and the executives’ homes, and confiscated computers and documents.
On June 23, 2021, the board of Next Digital announced that Apple Daily would publish its last edition and shut down operations the next day after authorities froze its assets.
Also on June 23, police arrested Apple Daily lead editorial writer Yeung Ching-kee, and on June 27, arrested the senior editorial writer and managing editor for the newspaper’s English edition, Fung Wai-kong, on collusion charges; Yeung and Fung were subsequently released on bail.
On July 21, 2021, police revoked bail for Chan, Yeung, and Fung and detained them, according to news reports. On the same day, police arrested former executive editor-in-chief Lam Man-chung on suspicion of “conspiring to collude with foreign forces.” On July 22, a court denied Chan, Fung, Yeung, and Lam’s bail applications and formally charged them with collusion under the national security law.
Prosecutors accuse the four of conspiring with Lai, Law, Cheung, Next Digital, and three Next Digital entities to call for foreign sanctions against Hong Kong and China between July 1, 2020, and April 3, 2021.
The arrests of Chan, Lai, and other executives came amid authorities’ crackdown on the city’s pro-democracy movement, which targeted many media figures and activists critical of the government and the Chinese Communist Party.
On November 22, 2022, prosecutors agreed not to pursue the sedition charge and Chan pleaded guilty to the collusion charge, though a sentence was not announced. The maximum sentence is life imprisonment, according to the Hong Kong government’s legislation database. Chan was awaiting sentencing as of late 2024.
Between February and March 2024, Chan testified against her former boss Jimmy Lai at the latter’s national security trial.
Chan’s husband, former Stand News editor Chung Pui-kuen, was separately jailed for 21 months in September 2024 in another sedition trial.
As of late 2024, Chan was being held at the Tai Lam Centre for Women, a maximum-security institution.
The Hong Kong Security Bureau told CPJ in an email that it would not comment on the case given that the legal proceedings are still ongoing, and added, “The HKSAR [Hong Kong Special Administrative Region] law enforcement agencies have been taking law enforcement actions based on evidence and strictly in accordance with the law in respect of illegal and improper acts of the persons or entities concerned, paying no regard to their political stance, background or occupation.”