6 Apple Daily staff plead guilty to collusion in Hong Kong

Six former executives of a now-defunct Hong Kong pro-democracy newspaper on Tuesday pleaded guilty to a collusion charge under the National Security Law that has silenced and jailed most opposition voices in the southern Chinese territory.
The staff members of Apple Daily were arrested last year during a crackdown on dissent after Beijing imposed the sweeping security law in response to the widespread anti-government protests in 2019. They were charged with conspiracy to commit collusion with foreign forces to endanger national security. The law criminalizes acts of succession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign forces. Its maximum penalty is life imprisonment.
Publisher Cheung Kim-hung, associated publisher Chan Pui-man, Editor-in-Chief Ryan Law, Executive Editor-in-Chief Lam Man-chung, and editorial writers Fung Wai-kong and Yeung Ching-kee, admitted they had conspired with the newspaper’s founder Jimmy Lai to call for an imposition of sanctions or blockade, or engage in other hostile activities against Hong Kong or China.